THE  FALL  0  F 


LAS  LOR 


iiHADD 


'ONE  OF  THE  EAGLES  STRUCK  ME  A  STINGING  BLOW  ON  THE  HEAD' 

Cl,apter  V. 


THE 
FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 


BY 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  LAY  OF  THE  LAND,' 
"THE  FACE  OF  THE  FIELDS,"  BTC. 

ILLUSTRATED  BY 

ROBERT  BRUCE  HORSFALL 


BOSTON    NEW  YORK    CHICAGO 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(The  LJiDrrfirtc  |3rroD  C ambrtUjf 


COPYRIGHT,    1896,    1903,    BY   PERRY   MASON   COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT,    1907,    BY   HOL'GHTON    MIFFLIN   AND   COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    1911,    BY   THE    GOLDEN   RULE    COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    igll,    BY    THE   ATLANTIC    MONTHLY    COMPANY 

COPYRIGHT,    IpII,    BY   DALLAS   LORE   SHARP 

ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


TO 
DOCTOR  AND  MRS.  TRASK 

OF  THE 

SOUTH  JERSEY  INSTITUTE 
BEST  OF  TEACHERS,  DEAREST  OF  FRIENDS 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION t  xi 

I.  THE  CLOCK  STRIKES  ONE 1 

II.  ALONG  THE  HIGHWAY  OF  THE  Fox  ....  9 

III.  IN  THE  TOADFISH'S  SHOE 21 

IV.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  FALL      .        .  29 
V.  WHIPPED  BY  EAGLES 36 

VI.  THANKSGIVING  AT  GRANDFATHER'S  FARM        .        .  46 

VII.  A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  Do  THIS  FALL           .        .  62 

VIII.  THE  MUSKRATS  ARE  BUILDING          ....  61 

IX.  THE  NORTH  WIND  DOTH  BLOW 67 

X.  AN  OUTDOOR  LESSON 76 

XI.  LEAFING 80 

XII.   A  CHAPTER  OF  THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  FALL  .        .  88 

XIII.  HONK,  HONK,  HONK  ! 96 

NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS      .       .  105 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  ONE   OF  THE   EAGLES   STRUCK   ME  A  STINGING   BLOW   ON   THE 

HEAD" Frontispiece 

THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR Facing  1 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  I 1 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  II 9 

"OVER   THE   HILL  IN   A   WHIRLWIND   OF   DOST   AND  HOWLS  " 

Facing  18 
INITIAL,  CHAPTER  III 21 

"HERE   I   FOUND   HIM   KEEPING   HOUSE"     ....       Facing  24 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  IV 29 

A  SILKY  SKEIN  OF  COBWEB 30 

"  A   WILD  CREATURE,   THAT   WON'T  GET   OUT   OF  YOUR   WAY  " 

Facing  32 
THE  PYXIE 32 

THE  FIELD  OF  CORN  IN  THE  SHOCK 33 

V 

THE   WINGED,   AND   PLUMED,   AND   BALLOONED  SEEDS  .         .       34,  35 


INITIAL,  CHAPTER  V  . 
INITIAL,  CHAPTER  VI 


"THE     LANTERN    FLICKERS,   THE     MILK     FOAMS,    THE     STORIES 

FLOW" Facing  48 


viii                        ILLUSTRATIONS  • 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  VII 52 

A  COON 54 

QUAILS 55 

SHAGBARKS 56 

WILD  SEA  FOWL 57 

BLACK  HAWTHORN  BERRIES 58 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  VIII ...  61 

"  TO-NIGHT  THERE  is  NO  LOAFING  ABOUT  THE  LODGE  "  Facing  62 

TAILPIECE 66 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  IX 67 

AWHITEFOOT       .      . 68 

A  CHIPMUNK 70 

A  WOODCHUCK 72 

FIVE  DAYS  OF  LIFE  AND  PLENTY  FOR  THE  BIRDS    ...  74 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  X 76 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  XI 80 

"  BUT  COME,   BOYS,   GET   AFTER  THOSE   BAGS  !  "       .         .       Facing  84 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  XII 88 

A  LOON 89 

WHEN  NIGHT  COMES 90 

A  BLUE  JAY .91 


ILLUSTRATIONS  « 

A  RED  SQUIRREL  ............    92 

A  KINGLET     .............    93 

INITIAL,  CHAPTER  XIII  ..........    96 

WILD  GEESE  .............  102 

TAILPIECE       .............  103 


NOTE 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  subject  of  the  initial  for  chapter  iv  is 
witch-hazel  ;  that  for  chapter  VH,  the  cocoons  of  the  cecropia,  the  prome- 
thea,  and  the  basket  worm  ;  and  that  for  chapter  viii,  a  sprig  of  aider, 
with  the  old  fruit  and  a  budded  catkin.  The  subjects  of  the  other  initials 
require  no  identification. 


INTRODUCTION 

THERE    are    three    serious   charges   brought 
against  nature   books  of  the  present  time, 
namely,  that  they  are  either  so  dull  as  to  be 
unreadable,  or  so  fanciful  as  to  be  misleading,  or  so 
insincere  as  to  be  positively  harmful.  There  is  a  real 
bottom  to  each  of  these  charges. 

Dull  nature-writing  is  the  circumstantial,  the  de- 
tailed, the  cataloguing,  the  semi-scientific  sort,  dried 
up  like  old  Rameses  and  cured  for  all  time  with  the 
fine-ground  spice  of  measurements,  dates,  conditions 
—  observations,  so  called.  For  literary  purposes,  one 
observation  of  this  kind  is  better  than  two.  Rarely 
does  the  watcher  in  the  woods  see  anything  so  new 
that  for  itself  it  is  worth  recording.  It  is  not  what 
one  sees,  so  much  as  the  manner  of  the  seeing,  not 
the  observation  but  its  suggestions  that  count  for  in- 
terest to  the  reader.  Science  wants  the  exact  observa- 
tion ;  nature-writing  wants  the  observation  exact  and 
the  heart  of  the  observer  along  with  it.  We  want 
f  lenty  of  facts  in  our  nature  books,  but  they  have  all 
been  set  down  in  order  before  ;  what  has  not  been  set 
down  before  are  the  author's  thoughts  and  emotions. 
These  should  be  new,  personal,  and  are  pretty  sure 
therefore  to  be  interesting. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

More  serious  than  dullness  (and  that  is  serious 
enough)  is  the  charge  that  nature  books  are  untrust- 
worthy, that  they  falsify  the  facts,  and  give  a  wrong 
impression  of  nature.  Some  nature  books  do,  as 
some  novels  do  with  the  facts  of  human  life.  A 
nature  book  all  fall  of  extraordinary,  better-class 
animals  who  do  extraordinary  stunts  because  of  their 
superior  powers  has  little  of  real  nature  in  it.  There 
are  no  such  extraordinary  animals,  they  do  no  such 
extraordinary  things.  Nature  is  full  of  marvels  — 
Niagara  Falls,  a  flying  swallow,  a  star,  a  ragweed, 
a  pebble;  but  nature  is  not  full  of  dragons  and  cen- 
taurs and  foxes  that  reason  like  men  and  take  their 
tea  with  lemon,  if  you  please. 

I  have  never  seen  one  of  these  extraordinary  ani- 
mals, never  saw  anything  extraordinary  out  of  doors, 
because  the  ordinary  is  so  surprisingly  marvelous. 
And  I  have  lived  in  the  woods  practically  all  of  my 
life.  And  you  will  never  see  one  of  them  —  a  very 
good  argument  against  anybody's  having  seen 
them. 

The  world  out  of  doors  is  not  a  circus  of  perform- 
ing prodigies,  nor  are  nature-writers  strange  half- 
human  creatures  who  know  wood-magic,  who  talk 
with  trees,  and  call  the  birds  and  beasts  about  then? 
as  did  one  of  the  saints  of  old.  No,  they  are  plain 
people,  who  have  seen  nothing  more  wonderful  in 
the  woods  than  you  have,  if  they  would  tell  the 
truth. 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

When  I  protested  with  a  popular  nature-writer 
some  time  ago  at  one  of  his  exciting  but  utterly  im- 
possible fox  stories,  he  wrote  back,  — 

"  The  publishers  demanded  that  chapter  to  make 
the  book  sell." 

Now  the  publishers  of  this  book  make  no  such 
demands.  Indeed  they  have  had  an  expert  naturalist 
and  woodsman  hunting  up  and  down  every  line  of 
this  book  for  errors  of  fact,  false  suggestions,  wrong 
sentiments,  and  extraordinaries  of  every  sort.  If  this 
book  is  not  exciting  it  is  the  publishers'  fault.  It 
may  not  be  exciting,  but  I  believe,  and  hope,  that 
it  is  true  to  all  of  my  out  of  doors,  and  not  untrue 
to  any  of  yours. 

The  charge  of  insincerity,  the  last  in  the  list, 
concerns  the  author's  style  and  sentiments.  It  does 
not  belong  in  the  same  category  with  the  other  two, 
for  it  really  includes  them.  Insincerity  is  the  mother 
of  all  the  literary  sins.  If  the  writer  cannot  be  true 
to  himself,  he  cannot  be  true  to  anything.  Children 
are  the  particular  victims  of  the  evil.  How  often  are 
children  spoken  to  in  baby-talk,  gush,  hollow  ques- 
tions, and  a  condescension  as  irritating  as  coming 
teeth  !  They  are  written  to,  also,  in  the  same  spirit. 
»  The  temptation  to  sentimentalize  in  writing  of  the 
"  beauties  of  nature  "  is  very  strong.  Raptures  run 
through  nature  books  as  regularly  as  barbs  the  length 
of  wire  fences.  The  world  according  to  such  books 
is  like  the  Garden  of  Eden  according  to  Ridinger, 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

all  peace,  in  spite  of  the  monstrous  open -jawed 
alligator  in  the  foreground  of  the  picture,  who  must 
be  smiling,  I  take  it,  in  an  alligatorish  way  at  a  fat 
swan  near  by. 

Just  as  strong  to  the  story-writer  is  the  tempta- 
tion to  blacken  the  shadows  of  the  picture  —  to 
make  all  life  a  tragedy.  Here  on  my  table  lies  a 
child's  nature-book  every  chapter  of  which  ends  in 
death  —  nothing  but  struggle  to  escape  for  a  brief 
time  the  bloody  jaws  of  the  bigger  beast — or  of  the 
superior  beast,  man. 

Neither  extreme  is  true  of  nature.  Struggle  and 
death  go  on,  but,  except  where  man  interferes,  a  very 
even  balance  is  maintained,  peace  prevails  over  fear, 
joy  lasts  longer  than  pain,  and  life  continues  to  mul- 
tiply and  replenish  the  earth.  "  The  level  of  wild 
life,"  to  quote  my  words  from  "  The  Face  of  the 
Fields,"  "  of  the  soul  of  all  nature  is  a  great  serenity. 
It  is  seldom  lowered,  but  often  raised  to  a  higher 
level,  intenser,  faster,  more  exultant." 

This  is  a  divinely  beautiful  world,  a  marvelously 
interesting  world,  the  best  conceivable  sort  of  a 
world  to  live  in,  notwithstanding  its  gypsy  moths, 
tornadoes,  and  germs,  its  laws  of  gravity,  and  of 
cause  and  effect ;  and  my  purpose  in  this  series  of 
nature  books  is  to  help  my  readers  to  come  by  this 
belief.  A  clear  understanding  of  the  laws  of  the 
Universe  will  be  necessary  for  such  a  belief  in  the 
end,  and  with  the  understanding  a  profound  faith 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

iii  their  perfect  working  together.  But  for  the  pre- 
sent, in  these  books  of  the  Seasons,  if  I  can  describe 
the  out  of  doors,  its  living  creatures  and  their  doings, 
its  winds  and  skies  with  their  suggestions — all  of 
the  out  of  doors,  as  it  surrounds  and  supports  me 
here  in  my  home  on  Mullein  Hill,  Hingham,  so  that 
you  can  see  how  your  out  of  doors  surrounds  and 
supports  you,  with  all  its  manifold  life  and  beauty, 
then  I  have  done  enough.  If  only  I  can  accomplish 
a  fraction  of  this  I  have  done  enough. 

DALLAS  LORE  SHARP. 

MULLEIN  HILL,  September,  1911. 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 


THE   FALL   OF   THE   YEAR 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    CLOCK    STRIKES    ONE 

"  The  clock  strikes  one, 

And  all  is  still  around  the  house  ! 
But  in  the  gloom  f 

A  little  mouse 
Goes  creepy-creep  from  room  to  room." 

HE  clock  of  the  year  strikes  one !  — 
not  in  the  dark  silent  night  of  winter, 
but  in  the  hot  light  of  midsummer. 

It  is  a  burning  July  day, — one 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  year, 
—  and  all  is  still  around  the  fields 
and  woods.  All  is  still.  All  is  hushed. 
But  yet,  as  I  listen,  I  hear  things  in 
the  dried  grass,  and  in  the  leaves 
overhead,  going  "  creepy-creep,"  as  you  have  heard 
the  little  mouse  in  the  silent  night. 

I  am  lying  on  a  bed  of  grass  in  the  shade  of  a 
great  oak  tree,  as  the  clock  of  the  year  strikes  one. 
I  am  all  alone  in  the  quiet  of  the  hot,  hushed  day. 
Alone?  Are  you  alone  in  the  big  upstairs  at  mid- 
night, when  you  hear  the  little  mouse  going  "  creepy- 


2  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

creep"   from  room  to  room  ?   No ;  and  I  am   not 
alone. 

High  overhead  the  clouds  are  drifting  past ;  and 
between  them,  far  away,  is  the  blue  of  the  sky  — 
and  how  blue,  how  cool,  how  far,  far  away  !  But 
how  near  and  warm  seems  the  earth  ! 

I  lie  outstretched  upon  it,  feeling  the  burnt  crisp 
grass  beneath  me,  a  beetle  creeping  under  my 
shoulder,  the  heat  of  a  big  stone  against  my  side.  I 
throw  out  my  hands,  push  my  fingers  into  the  hot 
soil,  and  try  to  take  hold  of  the  big  earth  as  if  I 
were  a  child  clinging  to  my  mother. 

And  so  I  am.  But  I  am  not  frightened,  as  I  used 
to  be,  when  the  little  mouse  went  "creepy-creep," 
and  my  real  mother  brought  a  candle  to  scare  the 
mouse  away.  It  is  because  I  am  growing  old? 
But  I  cannot  grow  old  to  my  mother.  And  the  earth 
is  my  mother,  my  second  mother.  The  beetle  mov- 
ing under  my  shoulder  is  one  of  my  brothers ;  the 
hot  stone  by  my  side  is  another  of  my  brothers ;  the 
big  oak  tree  over  me  is  another  of  my  brothers; 
and  so  are  the  clouds,  the  white  clouds  drifting,  drift- 
ing, drifting,  so  far  away  yonder,  through  the  blue, 
blue  sky. 

The  clock  of  the  year  strikes  one.  The  summer 
sun  is  overhead.  The  flood-tide  of  summer  life  has 
come.  It  is  the  noon  hour  of  the  year. 

The  drowsy  silence  of  the  full,  hot  noon  lies  deep 
across  the  field.  Stream  and  cattle  and  pasture-slope 


THE  CLOCK   STRIKES   ONE  3 

are  quiet  in  repose.  The  eyes  of  the  earth  are  heavy. 
The  air  is  asleep.  Yet  the  round  shadow  of  my  oak 
begins  to  shift.  The  cattle  do  not  move ;  the  pasture 
still  sleeps  under  the  wide,  white  glare. 

But  already  the  noon  is  passing  —  to-day  I  see  thq 
signs  of  coming  autumn  everywhere. 

Of  the  four  seasons  of  the  year  summer  is  the 
shortest,  and  the  one  we  are  least  acquainted  with. 
Summer  is  hardly  a  pause  between  spring  and  au- 
tumn, simply  the  hour  of  the  year's  noon. 

We  can  be  glad  with  the  spring,  sad  with  the  au- 
tumn, eager  with  the  winter;  but  it  is  hard  for  us  to 
go  softly,  to  pause  and  to  be  still  with  the  summer ; 
to  rest  on  our  wings  a  little  like  the  broad-winged 
hawk  yonder,  far  up  in  the  wide  sky. 

But  now  the  hawk  is  not  still.  The  shadow  of 
my  oak  begins  to  lengthen.  The  hour  is  gone  ;  and, 
wavering  softly  down  the  languid  air,  falls  a  yellow 
leaf  from  a  slender  birch  near  by.  I  remember,  too, 
that  on  my  way  through  the  woodlot  I  frightened  a 
small  flock  of  robins  from  a  pine ;  and  more  than 
a  week  ago  the  swallows  were  gathering  upon  the 
telegraph  wires.  So  quickly  summer  passes.  It 
was  springtime  but  yesterday,  it  seems;  to-day  the 
autumn  is  here. 

It  is  a  July  day.  At  dawn  the  birds  were  singing, 
fresh  and  full-throated  almost  as  in  spring.  Then 
the  sun  burned  through  the  mist,  and  the  chorus 
ceased.  Now  I  do  not  hear  even  the  chewinkandthe 


4  THE  FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

talkative  vireo.  Only  the  fiery  notes  of  the  scarlet 
tanager  come  to  me  through  the  dry  white  heat  of 
the  noon,  and  the  resonant  song  of  the  indigo  bunt- 
ing —  a  hot,  metallic,  quivering  song,  as  out  of  a 
"  hot  and  copper  sky." 

There  are  nestlings  still  in  the  woods.  This  indigo 
bunting  has  eggs  or  young  in  the  bushes  of  the  hill- 
side ;  the  scarlet  tanager  by  some  accident  has  but 
lately  finished  his  nest  in  the  tall  oaks.  I  looked  in 
upon  some  half-fledged  cuckoos  along  the  fence.  But 
all  of  these  are  late.  Most  of  the  year's  young  are 
upon  the  wing. 

A  few  of  the  spring's  flowers  are  still  opening.  I 
noticed  the  bees  upon  some  tardy  raspberry  blossoms ; 
here  and  there  is  a  stray  dandelion.  But  these  are  late. 
The  season's  fruit  has  already  set,  is  already  ripening. 
Spring  is  gone ;  the  sun  is  overhead ;  the  red  wood- 
lily  is  open.  To-day  is  the  noon  of  the  year. 

High  noon  !  and  the  red  wood-lily  is  aflame  in  the 
old  fields,  and  in  the  low  tangles  of  sweet-fern  and 
blackberry  that  border  the  upland  woods. 

The  wood-lily  is  the  flower  of  fire.  How  impossi- 
ble it  would  be  to  kindle  a  wood-lily  on  the  cold, 
damp  soil  of  April !  It  can  be  lighted  only  on  this 
kiln-dried  soil  of  July.  This  old  hilly  pasture  is 
baking  in  the  sun ;  the  low  mouldy  moss  that  creeps 
over  its  thin  breast  crackles  and  crumbles  under  my 
feet ;  the  patches  of  sweet-fern  that  blotch  it  here 
and  there  crisp  in  the  heat  and  fill  the  smothered  air 


THE   CLOCK  STRIKES  ONE  5 

with  their  spicy,  breath  ;  while  the  wood-lily  opens 
wide  and  full,  lifting  its  spotted  lips  to  the  sun  for 
his  scorching  kiss.  See  it  glow  !  Should  the  withered 
thicket  burst  suddenly  into  a  blaze,  it  would  be  no 
wonder,  so  hot  and  fiery  seem  the  petals  of  this 
flower  of  the  sun. 

How  unlike  the  tender,  delicate  fragrant  flowers 
of  spring  are  these  strong  flowers  of  the  coming 
fall !  They  make  a  high  bank  along  the  stream  — 
milkweed,  boneset,  peppermint,  turtle-head,  joe-pye- 
weed,  jewel-weed,  smartweed,  and  budding  golden- 
rod  !  Life  has  grown  lusty  and  lazy  and  rank. 

But  life  has  to  grow  lusty  and  rank,  for  the  winter 
is  coming ;  and  as  the  woodchucks  are  eating  and 
eating,  enough  to  last  them  until  spring  comes  again, 
so  the  plants  are  storing  fat  in  their  tap-roots,  and 
ripening  millions  of  seeds,  to  carry  them  safely 
through  the  long  dead  months  of  winter. 

The  autumn  is  the  great  planting  time  out  of 
doors.  Every  autumn  wind  is  a  sower  going  forth  to 
sow.  And  he  must  have  seeds  and  to  spare  —  seeds 
for  the  waysides  for  the  winter  birds  to  eat,  seeds  for 
the  stony  places  where  there  is  no  depth  of  soil  for 
them,  seeds  for  the  ploughed  fields  where  they  are  not 
allowed  to  grow,  seeds  for  every  nook  and  corner,  in 
order  that  somewhere  each  plant  may  find  a  place 
to  live,  and  so  continue  its  kind  from  year  to  year. 

Look  at  the  seeds  of  the  boneset,  joe-pye-weed, 
milkweed,  and  goldenrod  !  Seeds  with  wings  and 


6  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

plumes  and  parachutes  that  go  floating  and  flying 
and  ballooning. 

"  Over  the  fields  where  the  daisies  grow, 

Over  the  flushing  clover, 
A  host  of  the  tiniest  fairies  go  — 
Dancing,  balancing  to  and  fro, 
Rolling  and  tumbling  over. 

"  Quivering,  balancing,  drifting  by, 
Floating  in  sun  and  shadow  — 

•  Maybe  the  souls  of  the  flowers  that  die 

Wander,  like  this,  to  the  summer  sky 
Over  a  happy  meadow." 

So  they  do.  They  wander  away  to  the  sky,  but 
they  come  down  again  to  the  meadow  to  make  it 
happy  next  summer  with  new  flowers ;  for  these  are 
the  seed-souls  of  thistles  and  daisies  and  fall  dande- 
lions seeking  new  bodies  for  themselves  in  the  warm 
soil  of  Mother  Earth. 

Mother  Earth  !  How  tender  and  warm  and  abund- 
ant she  is !  As  I  lie  here  under  the  oak,  a  child  in 
her  arms,  I  see  the  thistle-down  go  floating  by,  and 
on  the  same  laggard  breeze  comes  up  from  the  maple 
swamp  the  odor  of  the  sweet  pepper-bush.  A  little 
flock  of  chickadees -stop  in  the  white  birches  and 
quiz  me.  "Who  are  you?"  "Who  are  you-you- 
you  ?  "  they  ask,  dropping  down  closer  and  closer  to 
get  a  peek  into  my  face. 

Perhaps  they  don't  know  who  I  am.  Perhaps  I 
don't  know  who  they  are.  They  are  not  fish  hawks, 
of  course ;  but  neither  am  I  an  alligator  or  a  pump- 


THE  CLOCK  STRIKES  ONE  7 

kin,  as  the  chickadees  surely  know.  This  much  I  am 
quite  sure  of,  however:  that  this  little  flock  is  a 
family  —  a  family  of  young  chickadees  and  their  two 
parents,  it  may  be,  who  are  out  seeing  the  world 
together,  and  who  will  stay  together  far  into  the 
cold  coming  winter. 

They  are  one  of  the  first  signs  of  the  autumn  to 
me,  and  one  of  my  surest,  sweetest  comforts  as  the 
bleak  cold  winds  come  down  from  the  north.  For 
the  winds  will  not  drive  my  chickadees  away,  no 
matter  how  cold  and  how  hard  they  blow,  no  matter 
how  dark  and  how  dead  the  winter  woods  when,  in 
the  night  of  the  year,  the  clock  strikes  twelve. 

The  clock  to-day  strikes  one,  and  all  is  still  with 
drowsy  sleep  out  of  doors.  The  big  yellow  butter- 
flies, like  falling  leaves,  are  flitting  through  the 
woods;  the  thistledown  is  floating,  floating  past;  and 
in  the  sleepy  air  I  see  the  shimmering  of  the  spiders' 
silky  balloons,  as  the  tiny  aeronauts  sail  over  on  their 
strange  voyages  through  the  sky. 

How  easy  to  climb  into  one  of  their  baskets,  and 
in  the  fairy  craft  drift  far,  far  away  !  How  pleasant, 
too,  if  only  the  noon  of  the  year  would  last  and  last ; 
if  only  the  warm  sun  would  shine  and  shine  ;  if  only 
the  soft  sleepy  winds  would  sleep  and  sleep ;  if  only 
we  had  nothing  to  do  but  drift  and  drift  and  drift ! 

But  we  have  a  great  deal  to  do,  and  we  can't  get 
any  of  it  done  by  drifting.  Nor  can  we  get  it  done 
by  lying,  as  I  am  lying,  outstretched  upon  the  warm 


8  THE  FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

earth  this  July  day.  Already  the  sun  has  passed 
overhead  ;  already  the  cattle  are  up  and  grazing ; 
already  the  round  shadow  of  the  oak  tree  begins  to 
lie  long  across  the  slope.  The  noon  hour  is  spent.  I 
hear  the  quivering  click-clack  of  a  mowing-machine 
in  a  distant  hay  field.  The  work  of  the  day  goes  on. 
My  hour  of  rest  is  almost  over,  my  summer  vacation 
is  nearly  done.  Work  begins  again  to-morrow. 

But  I  am  ready  for  it.  I  have  rested  outstretched 
upon  the  warm  earth.  I  have  breathed  the  sweet  air 
of  the  woods.  I  have  felt  the  warm  life-giving  sun 
upon  my  face.  I  have  been  a  child  of  the  earth.  I 
have  been  a  brother  to  the  stone  and  the  bird  and  the 
beetle.  And  now  I  am  strong  to  do  my  work,  no 
matter  what  it  is. 


CHAPTER  II 

ALONG  THE  HIGHWAY  OF  THE  FOX 

ITH  only  half  a  chance 
our  smaller  wild  animals 
—  the  fox,  the  mink,  the 
'coon,  the  'possum,  the 
rabbit  —  would  thrive, 
and  be  happy  forever  on 
the  very  edges  of  the 
towns  and  cities.  Instead  of  a  hindrance,  houses 
and  farms,  roads  and  railways  are  a  help  to  the 
wild  animals,  affording  them  food  and  shelter  as 
their  natural  conditions  never  could.  So,  at  least, 
it  seems;  for  here  on  Mullein  Hill,  hardly  twenty 
miles  from  the  heart  of  Boston,  there  are  more  wild 
animals  than  I  know  what  to  do  with  —  just  as  if 
the  city  of  Boston  were  a  big  skunk  farm  or  fox 
farm,  from  which  the  countryside  all  around  (par- 
ticularly my  countryside)  were  being  continually 
restocked. 

But  then,  if  I  seem  to  have  more  foxes  than  a 
man  of  chickens  needs  to  have,  it  is  no  wonder,  liv- 
ing as  I  do  on  a  main  traveled  road  in  Foxland,  a 
road  that  begins  off  in  the  granite  ledges  this  side 
of  Boston,  no  one  knows  where,  and,  branching, 


10  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

doubling,  turning,  no  one  knows  how  many  times, 
comes  down  at  last  along  the  trout  brook  to  the 
street  in  front  of  my  house,  where,  leaping  the 
brook  and  crossing  the  street,  it  runs  beside  my 
foot-path,  up  the  hill,  to  the  mowing-field  behind 
the  barn. 

When  I  say  that  last  fall  the  hunters,  standing 
near  the  brook  where  this  wild-animal  road  and  the 
wagon  road  cross,  shot  seven  foxes,  you  will  be  quite 
ready  to  believe  that  this  is  a  much-traveled  road, 
this  road  of  the  foxes  that  cuts  across  my  mowing- 
field  ;  and  also  that  I  am  quite  likely  to  see  the  trav- 
elers, now  and  then,  as  they  pass  by. 

So  I  am,  especially  in  the  autumn,  when  game 
grows  scarce;  when  the  keen  frosty  air  sharpens 
the  foxes'  appetites,  and  the  dogs,  turned  loose  in  the 
woods,  send  the  creatures  far  and  wide  for  —  chick- 
ens ! 

For  chickens  ?  If  you  have  chickens,  I  hope  your 
chicken-coop  does  not  stand  along  the  side  of  a  fox 
road,  as  mine  does.  For  straight  across  the  mowing- 
field  runs  this  road  of  the  foxes,  then  in  a  complete 
circle  right  round  the  chicken  yard,  and  up  the 
bushy  ridge  into  the  wood. 

How  very  convenient!  Very,  indeed !  And  how 
thoughtful  of  me !  Very  thoughtful !  The  foxes 
appreciate  my  kindness;  and  they  make  a  point  of 
stopping  at  the  hen-yard  every  time  they  pass  this 
way. 


ALONG  THE  HIGHWAY  OF  THE  FOX     11 

It  is  interesting  to  know,  too,  that  they  pass  this 
way  almost  every  night,  and  almost  every  afternoon, 
and  at  almost  every  other  odd  time,  so  that  the  hens, 
with  hundreds  of  grubby  acres  to  scratch  in,  have 
to  be  fenced  within  a  bare  narrow  yard,  where  they 
can  only  be  seen  by  the  passing  foxes. 

Even  while  being  driven  by  the  dogs,  when  nat- 
urally they  are  in  something  of  a  hurry,  the  foxes 
will  manage  to  get  far  enough  ahead  of  the  hounds 
to  come  by  this  way  and  saunter  leisurely  around  the 
coop. 

I  have  a  double-barreled  gun  and  four  small  boys  ; 
but  terrible  as  that  combination  sounds,  it  fails 
somehow  with  the  foxes.  It  is  a  two-barreled-four- 
boyed  kind  of  a  joke  to  them.  They  think  that  I  am 
fooling  when  I  blaze  away  with  both  barrels  at  them. 
But  I  am  not.  Every  cartridge  is  loaded  with  BB 
shot.  But  that  only  means  Blank-Blank  to  them,  in 
spite  of  all  I  can  do.  The  way  they  jump  when  the  gun 
goes  off,  then  stop  and  look  at  me,  is  very  irritating. 

This  last  spring  I  fired  twice  at  a  fox,  who  jumped 
as  if  I  had  hit  him  (I  must  have  hit  him),  then  turned 
himself  around  and  looked  all  over  the  end  of  the 
barn  to  see  where  the  shots  were  coming  from.  They 
were  coming  from  the  back  barn  window,  as  he  saw 
when  I  yelled  at  him. 

It  was  an  April  morning,  cold  and  foggy,  so  cold 
and  foggy  and  so  very  early  that  my  chattering 
teeth,  I  think,  disturbed  my  aim. 


12  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

It  must  have  been  about  four  o'clock  when  one  of 
the  small  boys  tiptoed  into  my  room  and  whispered, 
"Father,  quick !  there's  a  fox  digging  under  Pigeon 
Henny's  coop  behind  the  barn." 

I  was  up  in  a  second,  and  into  the  boys'  room. 
Sure  enough,  there  in  the  fog  of  the  dim  morning  I 
could  make  out  the  moving  form  of  a  fox.  He  was 
digging  under  the  wire  runway  of  the  coop. 

The  old  hen  was  clucking  in  terror  to  her  chicks. 
It  was  she  who  had  awakened  the  boys. 

There  was  no  time  to  lose.  Downstairs  I  went, 
down  into  the  basement,  where  I  seized  the  gun,  and, 
slipping  in  a  couple  of  shells,  slid  out  of  the  cellar 
door  and  crept  stealthily  into  the  barn. 

The  back  window  was  open.  The  thick  wet  fog 
poured  in  like  dense  smoke.  I  moved  swiftly  in  my 
bare  feet  and  peered  down  upon  the  field.  There 
stood  the  blur  of  the  coop,  —  a  dark  shadow  only  in 
the  fog, — but  where  was  the  fox? 

Pushing  the  muzzle  of  my  double-barreled  gun 
across  the  window-sill,  I  waited.  And  there  in  the 
mist  stood  the  fox,  reaching  in  with  his  paw  under 
the  wire  that  inclosed  the  coop. 

Carefully,  deliberately,  I  swung  the  gun  on  the 
window-sill  until  the  bead  drew  dead  upon  the  thief ; 
then,  fixing  myself  as  firmly  as  I  could  with  bare 
feet,  I  made  sure  of  my  mark  and  fired. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  the  fox  jumped.  I  jumped, 
myself,  as  both  barrels  went  off  together.  A  gun  is 


ALONG   THE  HIGHWAY  OF  THE   FOX     13 

a  sudden  thing  at  any  time  of  day,  but  so  early  in 
the  morning,  and  when  everything  was  wrapped  in 
silence  and  ocean  fog,  the  double  explosion  was 
extremely  startling. 

The  fox  jumped,  as  naturally  he  would.  When, 
however,  he  turned  deliberately  around  and  looked 
all  over  the  end  of  the  barn  to  see  where  I  was  fir- 
ing from,  and  stood  there,  until  I  shouted  at  him  — 
I  say  it  was  irritating. 

But  I  was  glad,  on  going  out  later,  to  find  that 
neither  charge  of  shot  had  hit  the  coop.  The  coop 
was  rather  large,  larger  than  the  ordinary  coop  ; 
and  taking  that  into  account,  and  the  thick,  uncer- 
tain condition  of  the  atmosphere,  I  had  not  made 
a  bad  shot  after  all.  It  was  something  not  to  have 
killed  the  hen. 

But  the  fox  had  killed  eleven  of  the  chicks.  One 
out  of  the  brood  of  twelve  was  left.  The  rascal  had 
dug  a  hole  under  the  wire ;  and  then,  by  waiting  as 
they  came  out,  or  by  frightening  them  out,  had 
eaten  them  one  by  one. 

There  are  guns  and  guns,  and  some,  I  know,  that 
shoot  straight.  But  guns  and  dogs  and  a  dense  pop- 
ulation have  not  yet  availed  here  against  the  fox. 

One  might  think,  however,  when  the  dogs  are 
baying  hard  on  the  heels  of  a  fox,  that  one's  chickens 
would  be  safe  enough  for  the  moment  from  that  par- 
ticular fox.  But  there  is  no  pack  of  hounds  hunt- 
ing in  these  woods  swift  enough  or  keen  enough  to 


14  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

match  the  fox.  In  literature  the  cunning  of  the  fox 
is  very  greatly  exaggerated.  Yet  it  is,  in  fact,  more 
than  equal  to  that  of  the  hound. 

A  fox,  I  really  believe,  enjoys  an  all-day  run  be- 
fore the  dogs.  And  as  for  house  dogs,  I  have  seen 
a  fox,  that  was  evidently  out  for  mischief  and  utterly 
tired  of  himself,  come  walking  along  the  edge  of 
the  knoll  here  by  the  house,  and,  squatting  on  his 
haunches,  yap  down  lonesomely  at  the  two  farm 
dogs  below. 

This  very  week  I  heard  the  hounds  far  away  in 
the  ledges.  I  listened.  They  were  coming  toward  me, 
and  apparently  on  my  side  of  the  brook.  I  had  just 
paused  at  the  corner  of  the  barn  when  the  fox,  slip- 
ping along  the  edge  of  the  woods,  came  loping  down 
to  the  hen-yard  within  easy  gun-shot  of  me.  He 
halted  for  a  hungry  look*  at  the  hens  through  the 
wire  fence,  then  trotted  slowly  off,  with  the  dogs 
yelping  fully  five  minutes  away  in  the  swamp. 

How  many  minutes  would  it  have  taken  that  fox 
to  snatch  a  hen,  had  there  been  a  hen  on  his  side  of 
the  fence  ?  He  could  have  made  chicken-sandwiches 
of  a  hen  in  five  minutes,  could  have  eaten  them,  too, 
and  put  the  feathers  into  a  bolster  —  almost !  How 
many  of  my  hens  he  has  made  into  pie  in  less  than 
five  minutes ! 

As  desserts  go,  out  of  doors,  he  has  a  right  to  a 
pie  for  fooling  the  dogs  out  of  those  five  crowded 
minutes.  For  he  does  it  against  such  uneven  odds, 


ALONG  THE  HIGHWAY  OF  THE   FOX     15 

and  does  it  so  neatly  —  sometimes  so  very  thrillingly ! 
On  three  occasions  I  have  seen  him  do  the  trick, 
each  time  by  a  little  different  dodge. 

One  day,  as  I  was  climbing  the  wooded  ridge  be- 
hind the  farm,  I  heard  a  single  foxhound  yelping 
at  intervals  in  the  hollow  beyond.  Coming  cautiously 
to  the  top,  I  saw  the  hound  below  me  beating  slowly 
along  through  the  bare  sprout-land,  half  a  mile  away, 
and  having  a  hard  time  holding  to  the  trail.  Every 
few  minutes  he  would  solemnly  throw  his  big  black 
head  into  the  air,  stop  stock-still,  and  yelp  a  long 
doleful  yelp,  as  if  begging  the  fox  to  stop  its  fooling 
and  try  to  leave  a  reasonable  trail. 

The  hound  was  walking,  not  running ;  and  round 
and  round  he  would  go,  off  this  way,  off  that,  then 
back  when,  catching  the  scent  again,  he  would  up 
with  his  muzzle  and  howl  for  all  the  woods  to  hear. 
But  I  think  it  was  for  the  fox  to  hear. 

I  was  watching  the  curious  and  solemn  perform- 
ance, and  wondering  if  the  fox  really  did  hear  and 
understand,  when,  not  far  from  me,  on  the  crown  of 
the  ridge,  something  stirred. 

Without  moving  so  much  as  my  eyes,  I  saw  the 
fox,  a  big  beauty,  going  slowly  and  cautiously  round 
and  round  in  a  small  circle  among  the  bushes,  then 
straight  off  for  a  few  steps,  then  back  in  the  same 
tracks;  off  again  in  another  direction  and  back 
again ;  then  in  and  out,  round  and  round,  until, 
springing  lightly  away  from  the  top  of  a  big  stump 


16  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

near  by,  the  wily  creature  went  gliding  swiftly  down 
the  slope. 

The  hound  with  absolute  patience  worked  his 
sure  way  up  the  hill  to  the  circle  and  began  to  go 
round  and  round,  sniffling  and  whimpering  to  him- 
self, as  I  now  could  hear ;  sniffling  and  whimpering 
with  impatience,  but  true  to  every  foot-print  of  the 
trail.  Round  and  round,  in  and  out,  back  and  forth, 
he  went,  but  each  time  in  a  wider  circle,  until  the 
real  trail  was  picked  up,  and  he  was  away  with  an 
eager  cry. 

I  once  again  saw  the  trick  played,  so  close  to  me, 
and  so  deliberately,  with  such  cool  calculating,  that 
it  came  with  something  of  a  revelation  to  me  of  how 
the  fox  may  feel,  of  what  may  be  the  state  of  mind 
in  the  wild  animal  world. 

It  was  a  late  October  evening,  crisp  and  clear, 
with  a  moon  almost  full.  I  had  come  up  from  the 
meadow  to  the  edge  of  the  field  behind  the  barn, 
and  stood  leaning  back  upon  a  short-handled  hay- 
fork, looking.  It  was  at  everything  that  I  was  look- 
ing —  the  moonlight,  the  gleaming  grass,  the  very 
stillness,  so  real  and  visible  it  seemed  at  the  falling 
of  this  first  frost.  I  was  listening  too,  when,  as  far 
away  as  the  stars,  it  seemed,  came  the  cry  of  the 
hounds. 

You  have  heard  at  night  the  passing  of  a  train 
beyond  the  mountains?  the  sound  of  thole-pins 
round  a  distant  curve  in  the  river  ?  the  closing  of  a 


ALONG  THE   HIGHWAY  OF  THE   FOX     17 

barn  door  somewhere  down  the  valley  ?  Strange  it 
may  seem  to  one  who  has  never  listened,  but  the  far- 
off  cry  of  the  hounds  is  another  such  friendly  and 
human  voice,  calling  across  the  vast  of  the  night. 

They  were  coming.  How  clear  their  tones,  and 
bell-like !  How  mellow  in  the  distance,  ringing  on 
the  rim  of  the  moonlit  sky,  as  round  the  sides  of  a 
swinging  silver  bell.  Their  clanging  tongues  beat 
all  in  unison,  the  sound  rising  and  falling  through 
the  rolling  woodland,  and  spreading  like  a  curling 
wave  as  the  pack  broke  into  the  open  over  the  level 
meadows. 

I  waited.  Rounder,  clearer,  came  the  cry.  I  be- 
gan to  pick  out  the  individual  voices  as  now  this 
one,  now  that,  led  the  chorus  across  some  mighty 
measure  of  The  Chase. 

Was  it  a  twig  that  broke  ?  Some  brittle  oak  leaf 
that  cracked  in  the  path  behind  me?  A  soft  sound 
of  feet !  Something  breathed,  stopped,  came  on  — 
and  in  the  moonlight  before  me  stood  the  fox ! 

The  dogs  were  coming,  but  I  was  standing  still. 
And  who  was  I,  anyway?  A  stump?  A  post?  No, 
he  saw  instantly  that  I  was  more  than  an  ordinary 
post.  How  much  more  ? 

The  dogs  were  coming  ! 

"  Well,"  said  he,  as  plainly  as  anything  was  ever 
said,  "  I  don't  know  what  you  are.  But  I  will  find 
out."  And  up  he  came  and  sniffed  at  my  shoes.  "  This 
is  odd,"  he  went  on,  backing  carefully  off  and  sitting 


18  THE  FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

down  on  his  tail  in  the  edge  of  a  pine-tree  shadow. 
"  Odd  indeed.  Not  a  stump ;  not  a  man,  in  spite  of 
appearances,  for  a  man  could  never  stand  still  so 
long  as  that." 

The  dogs  were  crashing  through  the  underbrush 
below,  their  fierce  cries  quivering  through  the  very 
trees  about  me. 

The  fox  got  up,  trotted  back  and  forth  in  front 
of  me  for  the  best  possible  view,  muttering,  "  Too 
bad  !  Too  bad !  What  an  infernal  nuisance  a  pack 
of  poodles  can  make  of  themselves  at  times !  Here 
is  something  new  in  the  woods,  and  smells  of  the 
hen-yard,  as  I  live !  Those  silly  dogs  ! "  and  trotting 
back,  down  the  path  over  which  he  had  just  come, 
he  ran  directly  toward  the  coming  hounds,  leaped 
off  into  a  pile  of  brush  and  stones,  and  vanished  as 
the  hounds  rushed  up  in  a  yelping,  panting  whirl 
about  me. 

Cool  ?  Indeed  it  was !  He  probably  did  not  stop, 
as  soon  as  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  make  faces  at 
the  whole  pack.  But  that  is  because  they  have  po- 
liter ways  in  Foxland. 

It  is  no  such  walking-match  as  this  every  time. 
It  is  nip  and  tuck,  neck  and  neck,  a  dead  heat 
sometimes,  when  only  his  superior  knowledge  of  the 
ground  saves  the  fox  a  whole  skin. 

Perhaps  there  are  peculiar  conditions,  at  times, 
that  are  harder  for  the  fox  than  for  the  dogs,  as 
when  the  undergrowth  is  all  adrip  with  rain  or  dew, 


'OVER  THE   HILL   IN   A   WHIRLWIND   OF  DUST  AND  HOWLS' 


ALONG  THE   HIGHWAY  OF  THE   FOX     19 

and  every  jump  forward  is  like  a  plunge  overboard. 
His  red  coat  is  longer  than  the  short,  close  hair  of 
the  hound,  and  his  big  brush  of  a  tail,  heavy  with 
water,  must  be  a  dragging  weight  over  the  long 
hard  course  of  the  hunt.  If  wet  fur  to  him  means 
the  same  as  wet  clothes  to  us,  then  the  narrow  es- 
cape I  witnessed  a  short  time  ago  is  easily  explained. 
It  happened  in  this  way  : — 

I  was  out  in  the  road  by  the  brook  when  I  caught 
the  cry  of  the  pack ;  and,  hurrying  up  the  hill  to 
the  "  cut,"  I  climbed  the  gravel  bank  for  a  view 
down  the  road  each  way,  not  knowing  along  which 
side  of  the  brook  the  chase  was  coming,  nor  where 
the  fox  would  cross. 

Not  since  the  Flood  had  there  been  a  wetter 
morning.  The  air  could  not  stir  without  spilling ;  the 
leaves  hung  weighted  with  the  wet ;  the  very  cries 
of  the  hounds  sounded  thick  and  choking,  as  the 
pack  floundered  through  the  alder  swamp  that  lay 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill  where  I  was  waiting. 

There  must  be  four  or  five  dogs  in  the  pack,  I 
thought ;  and  surely  now  they  are  driving  down  the 
old  runway  that  crosses  the  brook  at  my  meadow. 

I  kept  my  eye  upon  the  bend  in  the  brook  and 
just  beyond  the  big  swamp  maple,  when  there  in 
the  open  road  stood  the  fox. 

He  did  not  stand ;  he  only  seemed  to,  so  suddenly 
and  unannounced  had  he  arrived.  Not  an  instant  had 
he  to  spare.  The  dogs  were  smashing  through  the 


20  THE  FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

briars  behind  bim.  Leaping  into  tbe  middle  of  the 
road,  he  flew  past  me  straight  up  the  street,  over 
the  ridge,  and  out  of  sight. 

I  turned  to  see  the  burst  of  the  pack  into  the 
road,  when  flash !  a  yellow  streak,  a  rush  of  feet,  a 
popping  of  dew-laid  dust  in  the  road,  and  back  was 
the  fox,  almost  into  the  jaws  of  the  hounds,  as 
he  shot  into  the  tangle  of  wild  grapevines  around 
which  the  panting  pack  was  even  then  turning ! 

With  a  rush  that  carried  them  headlong  past  the 
grapevines,  the  dogs  struck  the  warm  trail  in  the 
road  and  went  up  over  the  hill  in  a  whirlwind  of 
dust  and  howls. 

They  were  gone.  The  hunt  was  over  for  that  day. 
Somewhere  beyond  the  end  of  the  doubled  trail  the 
pack  broke  up  and  scattered  through  the  woods, 
hitting  a  stale  lead  here  and  there,  but  not  one  of 
them,  so  long  as  I  waited,  coming  back  upon  the 
right  track  to  the  grapevines,  through  whose  thick 
door  the  hard-pressed  fox  had  so  narrowly  won  his 
way. 


CHAPTER  IH 
IN  THE  TOADFISH'S  SHOE 

WAS  winding  up  my  summer  vaca- 
tion with  a  little  fishing  party  all  by 
myself,  on  a  wharf  whose  piles  stood 
deep  in  the  swirling  waters  from 
Buzzards  Bay.  My  heavy-leaded  line 
hummed  taut  in  the  swift  current; 
my  legs  hung  limp  above  the 
water ;  my  back  rested  comfort- 
ably against  a  great  timber  that 
was  warm  in  the  September  sun. 
Exciting?  Of  course  not.  Fish- 
ing is  fishing  —  any  kind  of  fishing  is  fishing  to  me. 
But  the  kind  I  am  most  used  to,  and  the  kind  I  like 
best,  is  from  the  edge  of  a  wharf,  where  my  feet 
dangle  over,  where  my  "throw-out"  line  hums  taut 
over  my  finger,  in  a  tide  that  runs  swift  and  deep 
and  dark  below  me. 

For  what  may  you  not  catch  in  such  dark  waters? 
And  when  there  are  no  "  bites,"  you  can  sit  and  wait; 
and  I  think  that  sitting  and  waiting  with  my  back 
against  a  big  warm  timber  is  just  as  much  fun  now 
as  it  used  to  be  when  I  was  a  boy. 

But  after  all  it  is  fish  that  you  want  when  you 


22  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

go  fishing;  and  it  is  exciting,  moreover,  just  to  sit  as 
I  was  sitting  on  the  wharf,  with  all  the  nerves  of 
your  body  concentrated  in  the  tip  of  your  right  fore- 
finger, under  the  pressure  of  your  line.  For  how 
do  you  know  but  that  the  next  instant  you  may 
get  a  bite?  And  how  do  you  know  what  the  fish 
may  be? 

When  you  whip  a  trout  stream  for  trout  —  why, 
you  expect  trout;  when  you  troll  a  pond  for  pickerel, 
you  expect  pickerel ;  but  when  you  sit  on  a  wharf 
with  your  line  far  out  in  big,  deep  waters — why,  you 
can  expect  almost  anything  —  except  shoes  ! 

Shoes?  Yes,  old  shoes ! 

As  I  sat  there  on  the  wharf  of  Buzzards  Bay, 
there  was  suddenly  a  sharp  tug  at  my  line.  A  short 
quick  snap,  and  I  hooked  him,  and  began  quickly 
hauling  him  in. 

How  heavily  he  came !  How  dead  and  stupid ! 
Even  a  flounder  or  a  cod  would  show  more  fight 
than  this ;  and  very  naturally,  for  on  the  end  of  my 
line  hung  an  old  shoe ! 

"Well,"  I  thought,  "I  have  fished  for  soles,  and 
down  on  the  Savannah  I  have  fished  for  'gators,  but 
I  never  fished  for  shoes  before  "  ;  and  taking  hold  of 
my  big  fish  (for  it  must  have  been  a  No.  12  shoe), 
I  was  about  to  feel  for  the  hook  when  I  heard  a 
strange  grunting  noise  inside,  and  nearly  tumbled 
overboard  at  sight  of  two  big  eyes  and  a  monstrous 
head  filling  the  whole  inside  of  the  shoe ! 


IN  THE   TOADFISH'S   SHOE  23 

"In  the  name  of  Davy  Jones  ! "  I  yelled,  flinging 
line  and  shoe  and  thing  (whatever  it  might  be)  far 
behind  me,  "I've  caught  the  Old  Man  of  the  Sea 
with  his  shoe  on!"  And,  scrambling  to  my  feet,  I 
hurried  across  the  wharf  to  see  if  it  really  were  a  fish 
that  now  lay  flapping  close  beside  the  shoe. 

It  was  really  a  fish ;  but  it  was  also  a  hobgoblin, 
nightmare,  and  ooze-croaker!  —  if  you  know  what 
that  is! 

I  had  never  seen  a  live  toadfish  before,  and  it  is 
small  wonder  that  I  sighed  with  relief  to  see  that  he 
had  unhooked  himself ;  for  he  looked  not  only  un- 
canny, but  also  dangerous !  He  was  slimy  all  over, 
with  a  tremendous  head  and  a  more  tremendous 
mouth  (if  that  could  be),  with  jaws  studded  on  the 
inside  with  rows  of  sharp  teeth,  and  fringed  on  the 
outside  with  folds  of  loose  skin  and  tentacles.  Great 
glaring  eyes  stared  at  me,  with  ragged  bits  of  skin 
hanging  in  a  ring  about  them. 

Ugly?  Oh,  worse  than  ugly?  Two  thirds  of  the 
monster  was  head ;  the  rest,  a  weak,  shapeless,  slimy 
something  with  fins  and  tail,  giving  the  creature  the 
appearance  of  one  whose  brain  had  grown  at  the 
expense  of  the  rest  of  his  body,  making  him  only  a 
kind  of  living  head. 

I  looked  at  him.  He  looked 'at  me,  and  croaked. 

"I  don't  understand  you,"  said  I,  and  he  croaked 
again.  "But  you  are  alive,"  said  I ;  "and  God  made 
you,  and  therefore  you  ought  not  to  look  so  ugly  to 


24  THE  FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

me,"  and  he  flapped  in  the  burning  sun  and  croaked 

again. 

Stooping  quickly,  I  seized  him,  crowded  him  back 
into  the  old  shoe,  and  dipped  him  under  water.  He 
gasped  with  new  life  and  croaked  again. 

"Now,"  said  I,  "I  begin  to  understand  you.  That 
croak  means  that  you  are  glad  to  taste  salt  water 
again";  and  he  croaked  again,  and  I  dipped  him  in 
again. 

Then  I  looked  him  over  thoughtfully.  He  was 
about  fifteen  inches  long,  brown  in  color,  and  coarsely 
marbled  with  a  darker  hue,  which  ran  along  the  fins 
in  irregular  wavy  lines. 

"You  are  odd,  certainly,  and  peculiar,  and  alto- 
gether homely,"  said  I ;  "but  really  you  are  not  very 
ugly.  Ugly?  No,  you  are  not  ugly.  How  could  any- 
body be  ugly  with  a  countenance  so  wise  and  learned? 
—  so  thoughtful  and  meditative?"  And  the  toad- 
fish  croaked  and  croaked  again.  And  I  dipped  him 
in  again,  and  understood  him  better,  and  liked  him 
better  all  the  time. 

Then  I  took  him  in  his  shoe  to  the  edge  of  the 
wharf. 

"I  am  glad  to  have  made  your  acquaintance,  sir," 
said  I.  "If  I  come  this  way  next  summer,  I  shall  look 
you  up;  for  I  want  to  know  more  about  you.  Good- 
by."  And  I  heard  him  croak  "  Good-by,"  as  he  and 
his  shoe  went  sailing  out  and  dropped  with  a  splash 
into  the  deep  dark  water  of  the  Bay. 


"HERE  I  FOUND  HIM  KEEPIKG  HOUSE" 


IN  THE  TOADFISH'S  SHOE  25 

I  meant  what  I  said,  and  the  next  summer,  along 
the  shores  of  the  Bay  I  hunted  him  up.  He  was  not 
in  an  old  shoe  this  time,  but  under  certain  rather 
large  stones  that  lay  just  below  ebb-tide  mark,  so 
that  they  were  usually,  though  not  always,  covered 
with  water.  Here  I  found  him  keeping  house;  and 
as  I  was  about  to  keep  house  myself,  my  heart  really 
warmed  to  him. 

I  was  understanding  him  more  and  more,  and  so 
I  was  liking  him  better  and  better.  Ugly?  Wait 
until  I  tell  you  what  the  dear  fellow  was  doing. 

He  was  keeping  house,  and  he  was  keeping  it  all 
alone !  Now  listen,  for  this  is  what  I  learned  that 
summer  about  the  strange  habits  of  Mrs.  Toadfish, 
and  the  handsome  behavior  of  her  husband. 

It  is  along  in  June  that  the  toadfish  of  our  New 
England  bays  begin  to  look  round  for  their  summer 
homes.  As  far  as  we  now  know,  it  is  the  female  who 
makes  the  choice  and  leaves  her  future  mate  to  find 
her  and  her  home.  A  rock  is  usually  chosen,  always 
iii  shallow  water,  and  sometimes  so  far  up  on  the 
shore  that  at  low  tide  it  is  left  high  and  almost  dry. 
The  rock  may  vary  in  size  from  one  as  small  as  your 
hat  up  to  the  very  largest. 

Having  selected  the  place  for  her  nest,  she  digs  a 
pathway  down  under  the  rock,  .and  from  beneath 
scoops  out  a  hollow  quite  large  enough  to  swim  round 
in.  This  completes  the  nest,  or  more  properly  burrow, 
in  which  her  little  toadfish  babies  are  to  be  reared. 


26  THE  FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

She  now  begins  to  lay  the  eggs,  but  not  in  the 
sand,  as  one  would  suppose;  she  deliberately  pastes 
them  on  the  under  surface  of  the  rock.  Just  how 
she  does  this  no  one  knows. 

The  eggs  are  covered  with  a  clear,  sticky  paste 
which  hardens  in  contact  with  water,  and  is  the 
means  by  which  the  mother  sticks  them  fast  to  the 
rock.  This  she  must  do  while  swimming  on  her  back, 
fastening  one  egg  at  a  time,  each  close  beside  its 
neighbor  in  regular  order,  till  all  the  cleared  surface 
of  the  rock  is  covered  with  hundreds  of  beautiful 
amber  eggs,  like  drops  of  pure,  clear  honey. 

The  eggs  are  about  the  size  of  buckshot;  and, 
curiously  enough,  when  they  hatch,  the  young  come 
out  with  their  heads  all  turned  in  the  same  direction. 
Does  the  mother  know  which  is  the  head  end  of  the 
egg?  Or  has  some  strange  power  drawn  them  around? 
Or  do  they  turn  themselves  for  some  reason? 

It  will  be  noticed,  in  lifting  up  the  rocks,  that  the 
heads  of  the  fish  are  always  turned  toward  the  en- 
trance to  their  nest,  through  which  the  light  and 
fresh  water  come;  and  it  is  quite  easy  to  see  that 
these  two  important  things  have  much  to  do  with 
the  direction  in  which  the  little  fish  are  turned. 

After  Mrs.  Fish  has  finished  laying  her  eggs,  her 
maternal  cares  are  over.  She  leaves  both  eggs  and 
cares  to  the  keeping  of  Mr.  Fish,  swims  off,  and 
crawls  into  a  tin  can — or  old  shoe! — to  meditate  in 
sober  satisfaction  for  the  rest  of  the  summer. 


IN  THE   TOADFISH'S   SHOE  27 

So  it  was  she  that  I  caught,  and  not  the  gallant 
Mr.  Toadfish  at  all !  I  am  glad  of  it.  I  have  a  deal 
of  sympathy  and  down-right  admiration  for  Mr.  Fish. 
He  behaves  most  handsomely. 

However,  Mrs.  Fish  is  very  wise,  and  could  not 
leave  her  treasures  in  better  keeping.  If  ever  there 
was  a  faithful  parent,  it  is  a  Father  Toadfish.  For 
three  weeks  he  guards  the  eggs  before  they  hatch 
out,  and  then  they  are  only  half  hatched ;  for  it  has 
taken  the  little  fish  all  this  time  to  get  out  on  the 
top  side  of  the  eggs,  to  which  they  are  still  attached 
by  their  middles,  so  that  they  can  move  only  their 
heads  and  tails. 

They  continue  to  wiggle  in  this  fashion  for  some 
weeks,  until  the  yolk  of  the  egg  is  absorbed,  and 
they  have  grown  to  be  nearly  half  an  inch  long. 
They  are  then  free  from  the  rock  and  swim  off,  look- 
ing as  much  like  their  parents  as  children  can,  and 
every  bit  as  ugly. 

Ugly  ?  Did  I  say  ugly  ?  Is  a  baby  ever  ugly  to  its 
mother?  Or  a  baby  toadfish  to  its  father?  No.  You 
cannot  love  a  baby  and  at  the  same  time  see  it  ugly. 
You  cannot  love  the  out  of  doors  with  all  your  mind 
as  well  as  with  all  your  heart,  and  ever  see  it  ugly. 

All  this  time  the  father  has  been  guarding  the 
little  toadfish ;  and  if,  during  the  whole  period,  he 
goes  out  to  get  a  meal,  I  have  not  been  able  to  find 
when  it  is,  for  I  always  find  him  at  home,  minding 
the  babies. 


28  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

The  toadfish  lives  entirely  unmolested  by  enemies, 
so  far  as  I  can  learn  ;  and  his  appearance  easily  ex- 
plains the  reason  of  it.  I  know  of  nothing  that  would 
willingly  enter  a  croaking,  snapping,  slimy  toadfish's 
nest  to  eat  him ;  and  it  takes  some  courage  to  put 
one's  hand  into  his  dark  hole  and  pull  him  out. 

His  principal  diet  seems  to  be  shrimp,  worms  and 
all  kinds  of  small  fish.  Yet  he  may  be  said  to  have 
no  principal  diet ;  for,  no  matter  what  you  are  fish- 
ing for,  or  what  kind  of  bait  you  are  using,  if  there 
is  a  toadfish  in  the  vicinity  you  are  sure  to  catch 
him.  If  fishing  along  a  wharf  in  September,  you  may 
catch  the  fish,  and  an  old  shoe  along  with  him  — 
with  her,  perhaps  I  should  say. 

And  if  you  do,  please  notice  how  wise  and  thought- 
ful the  face,  how  beautifully  marbled  the  skin,  how 
courageous  the  big  strong  jaw ! 

Ugly  ?  Not  if  you  will  put  yourself  in  the  toad- 
fish's  shoe. 


CHAPTER  IV 

A   CHAPTER    OF   THINGS    TO    SEE    THIS   PALL 


OU  ought  to  see  the  sky — every 
day.  You  ought  to  see,  as  often 
as  possible,  the  breaking  of 
dawn,  the  sunset,  the  moonrise,  and 
the  stars.  Go  up  to  your  roof,  if  you 
live  in  the  city,  or  out  into  the  mid- 
dle of  the  Park,  or  take  a  street-car 
ride  into  the  edge  of  the  country  — 
just  to  see  the  moon  come  up  over  the  woods  or  over 
a  rounded  hill  against  the  sky. 

II 

You  ought  to  see  the  light  of  the  October  moon, 
as  it  falls  through  a  roof  of  leafless  limbs  in  some  si- 
lent piece  of  woods.  You  have  seen  the  woods  by 
daylight ;  you  have  seen  the  moon  from  many  places ; 
but  to  be  in  the  middle  of  the  moonlit  woods  after 
the  silence  of  the  October  frost  has  fallen  is  to  have 
one  of  the  most  beautiful  experiences  possible  out 

of  doors. 

Ill 

You  ought  to  see  a  wooded  hillside  in  the  glorious 
colors  of  the  fall  —  the  glowing  hickories,  the  deep 


30  THE   FALL  OF   THE  YEAR 

flaming  oaks,  the  cool,  dark  pines,  the  blazing  gums 
and  sumacs !  Take  some  single,  particular  woodland 
scene  and  look  at  it  until  you  can  see  it  in  memory 

forever. 

IV 

You  ought  to  see  the  spiders  in  their  airships, 
sailing  over  the  autumn  meadows.  Take  an  Indian 


Summer  day,  lazy,  hazy,  sunny,  and  lie  down  on  your 
back  in  some  small  meadow  where  woods  or  old  rail 
fences  hedge  it  around.  Lie  so  that  you  do  not  face  the 
sun.  The  sleepy  air  is  heavy  with  balm  and  barely 
moves.  Soon  shimmering,  billowing,  through  the 
light,  a  silky  skein  of  cobweb  will  come  floating  over. 
Look  sharply,  and^you  will  see  the  little  aeronaut 
swinging  in  his  basket  at  the  bottom  of  the  balloon, 
sailing,  sailing  — 


THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  FALL  31 

Away  iu  the  air  — 

Far  are  the  shores  of  Anywhere, 

Over  the  woods  and  the  heather. 


You  ought  to  see  (only  see,  mind  you,)  on  one  of 
these  autumn  nights,  when  you  have  not  on  your 
party  clothes  — you  ought  to  see  a  "  wood  pussy."  A 
wood  pussy  is  not  a  house  pussy  ;  a  wood  pussy  is  a 
wood  pussy ;  that  is  to  say,  a  wood  pussy  is  a  — 
skunk  !  Yes,  you  ought  to  see  a  skunk  walking  calmly 
along  a  moonlit  path  and  not  caringafigfor  you.  You 
will  perhaps  never  meet  a  wild  buffalo  or  a  grizzly 
bear  or  a  jaguar  in  the  woods  nearest  your  house; 
but  you  may  meet  a  wild  skunk  there,  and  have  the 
biggest  adventure  of  your  life.  Yes,  you  ought  to 
see  a  skunk  some  night,  just  for  the  thrill  of  meet- 
ing a  wild  creature  that  won't  get  out  of  your  way. 

VI 

You  ought  to  see  the  witch-hazel  bush  in  blossom 
late  in  November.  It  is  the  only  bush  or  tree  in  the 
woods  that  is  in  full  bloom  after  the  first  snow  may 
have  fallen.  Many  persons  who  live  within  a  few 
minutes'  walk  of  the  woods  where  it  grows  have 
never  seen  it.  But  then,  many  persons  who  live  with 
the  sky  right  over  their  heads,  with  the  dawn  break- 
ing right  into  their  bedroom  windows,  have  never 
seen  the  sky  or  the  dawn  to  think  about  them,  and 
wonder  at  them !  There  are  many  persons  who  have 


32  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

never  seen  anything  at  all  that  is  worth  seeing.  The 
witch-hazel  bush,  all  yellow  with  its  strange  blossoms 
in  November,  is  worth  seeing,  worth  taking  a  great 
deal  of  trouble  to  see. 

There  is  a  little  flower  in  southern  New  Jersey 
called  pyxie,  or  flowering  moss,  a  very  rare  and  hid- 
den little  thing ;  and  I  know  an  old  botanist  who 
traveled  five  hundred  miles  just  to  have  the  joy  of 
seeing  that  little  flower 
growing  in  the  sandy 
swamp  along  Silver  Run. 
If  you  have  never  seen  the 
witch-hazel  in  bloom,  it 
will  pay  you  to  travel  five 
hundred  and  five  miles  to  see  it.  But  you  won't  need 
to  go  so  far,  —  unless  you  live  beyond  the  prai- 
ries, —  for  the  witch-hazel  grows  from  Nova  Scotia 
to  Florida  and  west  to  Minnesota  and  Alabama. 

There  is  one  flower  that,  according  to  Mr.  John 
Muir  (and  he  surely  knows ! ),  it  will  pay  one  to 
travel  away  up  into  the  highest  Sierra  to  see.  It  is 
the  fragrant  Washington  lily,  "  the  finest  of  all  the 
Sierra  lilies,"  he  says.  "Its  bulbs  are  buried  in 
shaggy  chaparral  tangles,  I  suppose  for  safety  from 
pawing  bears ;  and  its  magnificent  panicles  sway  and 
rock  over  the  top  of  the  rough  snow-pressed  bushes, 
while  big,  bold,  blunt-nosed  bees  drone  and  mumble 
in  its  polleny  bells.  A  lovely  flower  worth  going 
hungry  and  footsore  endless  miles  to  see.  The  whole 


'A  WILD  CREATURE  THAT  WON'T  GET  OUT  OF  TOUR  WAY" 


THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  FALL 


33 


world  seems  richer  now  that  I  have  found  this  plant 
in  so  noble  a  landscape." 

And  so  it  seemed  to  the  old  botanist  who  came 
five  hundred  miles  to  find  the  tiny  pyxie  in  the  sandy 
swamps  of  southern  New  Jersey.  So  it  will  seem  to 
you  —  the  whole  world  will  not  only  seem  richer, 
but  will  be  richer  for  you  —  when  you  have  found 
the  witch-hazel  bush  all  coveretl  with  summer's  gold 
in  the  bleak  woods  of  November. 

VII 

You  ought  to  see  a  big  pile  of  golden  pumpkins 
in  some  farmhouse  shed  or  beside  the  great  barn  door. 


You  ought  to  see  a  field  of  corn  in  the  shock ;  hay 
in  a  barn  mow;  the  jars  of  fruit,  the  potatoes, 
apples,  and  great  chunks  of  wood  in  the  farmhouse 
cellar.  You  ought  to  see  how  a  farmer  gets  ready 
for  the  winter  —  the  comfort,  the  plenty,  the  suf- 
ficiency of  it  all ! 


84 


THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 


VIII 

You  ought  to  see  how  the  muskrats,  too,  get  ready 
for  the  winter,  and  the  bees  and  the  flowers  and  the 
trees  and  the  frogs  —  everything.  Winter  is  coming. 
The  cold  will  kill — if  it  has  a  chance.  But  see  how 
it  has  no  chance.  How  is  it  that  the  bees  will  buzz, 
the  flowers  open,  the  birds  sing,  the  frogs  croak 
again  next  spring  as  if  there  had  been  no  freezing, 
killing  weather  ?  Go  out  and  see  why  for  yourselves. 

IX 

You  ought  to  see  the  tiny  seed  "  birds  "  from  the 
gray  birches,  scattering  on  the  autumn  winds;  the 
thistledown,  too ;  and  a  dozen  other  of  the  winged, 
and  plumed,  and  ballooned,  seeds  that 
sail  on  the  wings  of  the 
winds.  You  should  see  the 
burdock  burs  in  the 
cows'  tails  when 


they  come 
home  from  the 
pasture,  and  the 
stick-tights  and  beggar- 
needles    in    your    own 
coat-tails  when  you  come 
home  from  the  pastures.  And 
seeing  that,  you  should  think 
—  for  that  is  what  real  see- 


THINGS  TO  SEE  THIS  FALL 


35 


ing  means.  Think  what  ?  Why,  that  you  are    f 
just  as  good  as  a  cow's  tail  to  scatter  Nature's       1. 
seeds  for  her,  and  not  a  bit  better,  as  she     v&V  i 
sees  you. 


X 


You  ought  to  see  the  migrating 
birds  as  they  begin  to  flock  on 
the  telegraph  wires,  in  Ltj\^ 

neys,  and  among  the 
the  river.  You 


the  chim- 
reeds  of 
ought  to  see 
the  swallows, 
blackbirds,  robins, 
and  bluebirds,  as  they  flock 
together  for  the  long  southern 
flight.  There  are  days  in  late  Septem- 
ber and  in  early  October  when  the  very 
air  seems  to  be  half  of  birds,  especially 
toward  nightfall,  if  the  sun  sets  full  and  clear :  birds 
going  over ;  birds  diving  and  darting  about  you ; 
birds  along  the  rails  and  ridge-poles ;  birds  in  the 
grass  under  your  feet  —  birds  everywhere.  You 
should  be  out  among  them  where  you  can  see  them. 
And  especially  you  should  see  —  without  fail,  this 
autumn  and  every  autumn  —  the  wedge  of  wild 
geese  cleaving  the  dull  gray  sky  in  their  thrilling 
journey  down  from  the  far-off  frozen  North. 


CHAPTER   V 

\. 

WHIPPED    BY    EAGLES 

S  you  head  into  Maurice  River  Cove 
from  Delaware  Bay  by  boat,  the 
great  eagle's  nest  of  Garren's 
Neck  Swamp  soon  looms  into 
view.  It  is  a  famous  nest,  and 
an  ancient  nest;  for  it  has  a 
place  in  the  chart  of  every 
boat  that  sails  up  the  river,  and  has  had  for  I  don't 
know  how  many  years.  From  the  river  side  of  the 
long  swamp  the  nest  is  in  sight  the  year  round,  but 
from  the  land  side,  and  from  the  house  where  we 
lived,  the  nest  could  be  seen  only  after  the  leaves 
of  the  swamp  had  fallen.  Then  all  winter  long  we 
could  see  it  towering  over  the  swamp ;  and  often,  in 
the  distance,  we  could  see  the  eagles  coming  and 
going  or  soaring  in  mighty  circles  high  up  in  the 
air  above  it. 

That  nest  had  a  strange  attraction  for  me.  It  was 
the  home  of  eagles,  the  monarchs  of  this  wide  land 
of  swamp  and  marsh  and  river. 

Between  me  and  the  great  nest  lay  a  gloomy  gum 
swamp,  wet  and  wild,  untouched  by  the  axe  and  un- 
traveled,  except  in  winter  by  the  coon-hunters.  The 


WHIPPED   BY   EAGLES  37 

swamp  began  just  across  the  road  that  ran  in  front 
of  the  house ;  and  often  at  night  I  would  hear  the 
scream  of  a  wild  cat  in  the  dark  hollows ;  and  once 
I  heard  the  pat,  pat  of  its  feet  as  it  went  leaping 
along  the  road. 

Then  beyond  the  swamp  and  the  nest  stretched  a 
vast  wild  marsh-land,  where  the  reeds  grew,  and  the 
tides  came  in,  and  the  mud-hens  lived.  And  beyond 
that  flowed  the  river,  and  beyond  the  river  lay  an- 
other marsh,  and  beyond  the  marsh  another  swamp. 
And  over  all  this  vast  wild  world  towered  the  nest  of 
the  eagles,  like  some  ancient  castle  ;  and  over  it  all  — 
swamp  and  marsh  and  river  —  ruled  the  eagles,  as 
bold  and  free  as  the  mighty  barons  of  old. 

Is  it  any  wonder  that  I  often  found  myself  gazing 
away  at  that  nest  on  the  horizon  and  longing  for 
wings  ?  —  for  wings  with  which  to  soar  above  the 
swamp  and  the  bay  and  the  marsh  and  the  river,  to 
circle  about  and  about  that  lofty  eyrie,  as  wild  as 
the  eagles  and  as  free  ?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  I  de- 
termined some  day  to  stand  up  in  that  nest,  wings 
or  no  wings,  while  the  eagles  should  scream  about 
me,  and  away  below  me  should  stretch  river  and 
marsh  and  swamp? 

To  stand  up  in  that  nest,  to  yell  and  wave  my 
arms  with  the  eagles  wheeling  arid  screaming  over 
me,  became  the  very  peak  of  my  boy  ambitions. 

And  I  did  it.  I  actually  had  the  eggs  of  those 
eagles  in  my  hands.  I  got  into  the  nest ;  but  I  am 


38  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

glad  even  now  that  I  got  out  of  the  nest  and 
reached  the  ground. 

It  must  have  been  in  the  spring  of  my  fourteenth 
year  when,  at  last,  I  found  myself  beneath  the  eagle 
tree.  It  was  a  stark  old  white  oak,  almost  limbless, 
and  standing  out  alone  on  the  marsh  some  distance 
from  the  swamp.  The  eagle's  nest  capped  its  very 
top. 

The  nest,  I  knew,  must  be  big ;  but  not  until  I 
had  climbed  up  close  under  it  did  I  realize  that  it 
was  the  size  of  a  small  haystack.  There  was  certainly 
half  a  cord  of  wood  in  it.  I  think  that  it  must  orig- 
inally have  been  built  by  fish  hawks. 

Holding  to  the  forking  top  upon  which  the  nest 
was  placed,  I  reached  out,  but  could  not  touch  the 
edge  from  any  side. 

I  had  come  determined  to  get  up  into  it,  however, 
at  any  hazard;  and  so  I  set  to  work.  I  never  thought 
of  how  I  was  to  get  down ;  nor  had  I  dreamed, 
either,  of  fearing  the  eagles.  A  bald  eagle  is  a  bully. 
I  would  as  soon  have  thought  of  fearing  our  hissing 
old  gander  at  home. 

As  I  could  not  get  out  to  the  edge  of  the  nest 
and  scale  the  walls,  the  only  possible  way  up,  appar- 
ently, was  through  the  nest.  The  sticks  here  in  the 
bottom  were  old  and  quite  rotten.  Digging  was  easy, 
and  I  soon  had  a  good  beginning. 

The  structure  was  somewhat  cone-shaped,  the 
smaller  end  down.  It  had  grown  in  circumference  as 


WHIPPED   BY  EAGLES  39 

it  grew  in  years  and  in  height,  probably  because  at  the 
bottom  the  building  materials  had  decayed  and  grad- 
ually fallen  away,  until  now  there  was  a  decided 
outward  slant  from  bottom  to  top.  It  had  grown  lop- 
sided, too,  there  being  a  big  bulge  on  one  side  of 
the  nest  near  the  middle. 

The  smalluess  of  the  bottom  at  first  helped  me ; 
there  was  less  of  the  stuff  to  be  pulled  out.  I  easily 
broke  away  the  dead  timbers  and  pushed  aside  the 
tougher  sticks.  I  intended  to  cut  a  channel  clear  to 
the  top  and  go  up  through  the  nest.  Already  my 
head  and  shoulders  were  well  into  it. 

Now  the  work  became  more  difficult.  The  sticks 
were  newer,  some  of  them  being  of  seasoned  oak  and 
hickory,  which  the  birds  had  taken  from  cord-wood 
piles. 

I  had  cut  my  channel  up  the  side  of  the  nest  nearly 
halfway  when  I  came  to  a  forked  branch  that  I  could 
neither  break  off  nor  push  aside.  I  soon  found  that 
it  was  not  loose,  but  that  it  belonged  to  the  oak  tree 
itself.  It  ran  out  through  the  nest  horizontally,  ex- 
tending a  little  more  than  a  foot  beyond  the  rough 
walls. 

Backing  down,  I  saw  that  this  fork  was  tlie  support 
of  the  bulge  that  had  given  the  nest  its  lopsided 
appearance.  A  few  large  timbers  had  been  rested 
across  it,  small  loose  pieces  had  gradually  lodged 
upon  these,  and  thus  in  time  brought  about  the  big 
bulge. 


40  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

I  pushed  off  this  loose  stuff  and  the  few  heavy 
timbers  and  found  that  the  fork  would  bear  my 
weight.  It  now  projected  a  little  way  from  the  walls 
of  the  nest.  I  got  a  firm  hold  on  the  forks  out  at 
their  ends,  swung  clear,  and  drew  myself  up  between 
them.  After  a  lively  scramble,  I  got  carefully  to  my 
feet,  and,  clutching  the  sticks  protruding  from  the 
side,  stood  up,  with  my  eyes  almost  on  a  level  with 
the  rim  of  the  great  nest.  This  was  better  than  cut- 
ting a  channel,  certainly  —  at  least  for  the  ascent, 
and  I  was  not  then  thinking  of  the  descent. 

I  looked  over  the  protruding  sticks  of  the  rim.  I 
caught  a  glimpse  of  large  dull  white  eggs! 

Eggs  of  shining  gold  could  not  have  so  fascinated 
me.  There  were  thousands  of  persons  who  could  have 
gold  eggs  if-  they  cared.  But  eagles'  eggs !  Money 
could  not  buy  such  a  sight  as  this. 

I  was  more  than  ever  eager  now  to  get  into  the 
nest.  Working  my  fingers  among  the  sticks  of  the 
rim  for  a  firm  grip,  I  stuck  my  toes  into  the  rough 
wall  and  began  to  climb.  At  some  considerable  hazard 
and  at  the  cost  of  many  rents  in  my  clothing,  I 
wriggled  up  over  the  edge  and  into  the  hollow  of 
the  nest  where  the  coveted  eggs  lay. 

The  eagles  were  wheeling  and  screaming  overhead. 
The  weird  cac,  cac,  cac  of  the  male  came  down  from 
far  above  me;  while  the  female,  circling  closer,  would 
swoop  and  shrill  her  menacing,  maniacal  half-laugh 
almost  in  my  ears. 


WHIPPED   BY  EAGLES  41 

Their  wild  cries  thrilled  me,  and  their  mighty 
wings,  wheeling  so  close  around  me,  seemed  to  catch 
me  in  their  majestic  sweep  and  almost  to  carry  me 
in  swift,  swinging  circles  through  the  empty  air. 
An  ecstasy  of  excitement  overcame  me.  I  felt  no 
body,  no  weight  of  anything.  I  lost  my  head  com- 
pletely, and,  seizing  the  eggs,  rose  to  my  feet  and 
stood  upright  in  the  nest. 

The  eagles  swept  nearer.  I  could  feel  the  wind 
from  their  wings.  I  could  see  the  rolling  of  their 
gleaming  eyes,  and  the  glint  of  the  sun  on  their 
snow-white  necks.  And  as  they  dipped  and  turned 
and  careened  over  me,  I  came  perilously  near  trying 
to  fly  myself. 

What  a  scene  lay  under  me  and  rolled  wide  and 
free  to  the  very  edge  of  the  world !  The  level  marsh, 
the  blue,  hazy  bay,  the  far-off,  unblurred  horizon 
beyond  the  bending  hill  of  the  sea !  The  wild,  free 
wind  from  the  bay  blew  in  upon  my  face,  the  old 
tree  trembled  and  rocked  beneath  me,  the  screaming 
eagles  wove  a  mazy  spell  of  double  circles  about  me, 
till  I  screamed  back  at  them  in  wild  delight. 

The  sound  of  my  voice  seemed  to  infuriate  the 
birds.  The  male  turned  suddenly  in  his  round  and 
swooped  directly  at  me.  The  movement  was  instantly 
understood  by  his  mate,  who,  thus  emboldened,  cut 
under  him  and  hurled  herself  downward,  passing 
with  a  vicious  grab  at  my  face.  I  dodged,  or  she 
would  have  hit  me. 


42  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

For  the  moment  I  had  forgotten  where  I  stood ; 
and,  in  dodging  the  eagle,  I  almost  stepped  over  the 
edge  of  the  nest.  I  caught  my  balance  and  dropped 
quickly  to  my  knees,  completely  unnerved. 

Fear  like  a  panic  took  instant  hold  on  me.  Only 
one  desire  possessed  me  —  to  get  down.  I  crept  to 
the  edge  and  looked  over.  The  sight  made  me  dizzy. 
Sixty  feet  of  almost  empty  air!  Far  down,  a  few 
small  limbs  intervened  between  me  and  the  ground. 
But  there  was  nothing  by  which  to  descend. 

I  was  dismayed ;  and  my  expression,  my  posture 
— something,  betrayed  my  confusion  to  the  eagles. 
They  immediately  lost  all  dread  of  me.  While  I  was 
looking  over,  one  of  them  struck  me  a  stinging  blow 
on  the  head,  knocking  my  cap  off  into  the  air. 

That  started  me.  I  must  climb  down  or  be  knocked 
over.  If  only  I  had  continued  with  my  channel  to 
the  top !  If  only  that  forked  branch  by  which  I  as- 
cended were  within  reach!  But  how  could  I  back 
over  the  flaring  rim  to  my  whole  length  and  swing 
my  body  under  against  the  in  ward -slanting  nest 
until  my  feet  could  touch  the  fork?  But  if  I  ever  got 
down,  that  was  what  I  must  do ;  for  the  eagles  gave 
me  no  chance  to  cut  a  channel  now. 

Laying  the  eggs  back  for  the  time  in  the  hollow, 
I  began  tearing  away  the  rim  of  the  nest  in  order  to 
clear  a  place  over  which  to  back  down. 

I  was  momentarily  in  danger  of  being  hurled  off 
by  the  birds ;  for  I  could  not  watch  them  and  work, 


WHIPPED   BY  EAGLES  43 

too.  And  they  were  growing  bolder  with  every  dash. 
One  of  them,  driving  fearfully  from  behind,  flattened 
me  out  on  the  nest.  Had  the  blow  been  delivered  from 
the  front,  I  should  have  been  knocked  headlong  to 
the  ground. 

I  was  afraid  to  delay  longer.  A  good-sized  breach 
was  opened  in  the  rim  of  the  nest  by  this  time. 
And  now,  if  the  sticks  would  not  pull  out,  I  might 
let  myself  over  and  reach  the  fork.  Once  my  feet 
touched  that,  I  could  manage  the  rest,  I  knew. 

Digging  my  hands  deep  into  the  nest  for  a  firm 
hold,  I  began  cautiously  to  back  over  the  rough, 
stubby  rim,  reaching  with  my  feet  toward  the  fork. 

The  eagles  seemed  to  appreciate  the  opportunity 
my  awkward  position  offered  them.  I  could  not  have 
arranged  myself  more  conveniently  to  their  minds,  I 
am  sure.  And  they  made  the  most  of  it.  I  can  laugh 
now ;  but  the  memory  of  it  can  still  make  me  shiver, 
too. 

I  had  wriggled  over  just  so  that  I  could  bend  my 
body  at  the  waist  and  bring  my  legs  against  the  nest 
when  a  sharp  stub  caught  in  my  clothes  and  held 
me.  I  could  get  neither  up  nor  down.  My  handhold 
was  of  the  most  precarious  kind,  and  I  dared  not  let 
go  for  a  moment  to  get  off  the  snag. 

I  tried  to  back  out  and  push  off  from  it,  but  it 
seemed  to  come  out  with  me.  It  must  be  broken  ; 
and  pulling  myself  up,  I  dropped  with  all  the  force 
I  could  put  into  my  body.  That  loosened,  but  did 


44  THE  FALL  OF   THE  YEAR 

not  break  it.  Suddenly,  while  I  was  resting  between 
the  efforts,  the  thing  gave  way. 

I  was  wholly  unprepared.  All  my  weight  was  in- 
stantly thrown  upon  my  hands.  The  jagged  sticks 
cut  into  my  wrists,  my  grip  was  pried  off,  and  I  fell. 

Once,  twice,  the  stubs  in  the  wall  of  the  nest 
caught  and  partly  stopped  me,  then  broke.  I  clutched 
frantically  at  them,  but  could  not  hold.  Then,  almost 
before  I  realized  that  I  was  falling,  I  hung  suspended 
between  two  limbs  —  the  forks  of  the  white  oak 
branch  in  the  side  of  the  nest. 

I  had  been  directly  above  it  when  the  stub  broke, 
and  had  fallen  through  it ;  and  the  two  branches  had 
caught  me  right  under  both  of  my  arms. 

For  a  second  I  was  too  dazed  to  think.  Then  a 
swish  of  wings,  a  hard  blow  on  the  neck,  and  a 
shooting  pain  made  my  position  clear.  I  was  not 
down  yet  nor  out  of  danger.  The  angry  birds  still 
had  me  in  reach. 

Hanging  with  one  arm,  I  twisted  round  until  the 
other  arm  was  free,  then  seized  the  branches  and 
swung  under,  but  not  before  the  eagles  had  given 
me  another  raking  dab. 

Here  beneath  the  branches,  close  up  to  the  bottom 
of  the  nest,  I  was  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  the  birds ; 
and  through  the  channel  I  had  cut  in  my  ascent,  I 
climbed  quickly  down  into  the  tree. 

It  was  now  a  mere  matter  of  sliding  to  the  ground. 
But  I  was  so  battered  and  faint  that  I  nearly  turn- 


WHIPPED  BY  EAGLES  45 

bled.  I  was  a  sorry-looking  boy  —  my  clothing  torn, 
my  hands  bleeding,  my  head  and  neck  clawed  in  a 
dozen  places. 

But  what  did  I  do  with  the  eagles'  eggs?  Why, 
I  allowed  the  old  eagles  to  hatch  them.  What  else 
could  I  do  ?  or  what  better  ? 


CHAPTER  VI 

THANKSGIVING  AT  GRANDFATHER'S  FARM 


HANKSGIVING  at  Grand- 
father's farm  was  more  than 
a  holiday.  It  was  a  great  date  on 
the  calendar,  for  it  divided  the 
year  in  halves  as  no  other  single 
day  of  the  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  did.  It  marked  the  end 
of  the  outdoors,  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  indoors  —  the  day 
when  everybody  came  home; 
when  along  with  them  into  the 
house  came  all  the  outdoors,  too, 
as  if  the  whole  farm  were  brought 
in  to  toast  its  toes  before  the 
great  hearth  fire ! 
For  the  hearth  fire  was  big  enough  and  cheery 


THANKSGIVING  AT  GRANDFATHER'S     47 

enough.  And  so  was  the  farmhouse  —  that  is,  if  you 
added  the  big  barn  and  the  crib-house  and  the 
wagon-house  and  the  dog-house  and  the  hen-house 
and  the  "  spring-house  ! " 

Oh,  there  was  plenty  of  room  inside  for  everybody 
and  for  everything !  And  there  needed  to  be ;  for 
did  not  everybody  come  home  to  Grandfather's  for 
Thanksgiving?  And  did  not  everything  that  any- 
body could  need  for  the  winter,  grow  on  Grand- 
father's farm  ? 

And  it  all  had  to  be  brought  in  by  Thanksgiving 
Day — everything  brought  in,  everything  housed 
and  stored  and  battened  down  tight.  The  prepara- 
tions began  along  in  late  October,  continuing  with 
more  speed  as  the  days  shortened  and  darkened  and 
hurried  us  into  November.  And  they  continued  with 
still  more  speed  as  the  gray  lowering  clouds  thickened 
in  the  sky,  and  the  wind  began  to  whistle  through 
the  oak  grove.  Then,  with  the  first  real  cold  snap, 
the  first  swift  flurry  of  snow,  how  the  husking  and 
the  stacking  and  the  chopping  went  on  ! 

Thanksgiving  must  find  us  ready  for  winter  in- 
doors and  out. 

The  hay-mows  were  full  to  the  beams  where  the 
swallows  built;  the  north  and  west  sides  of  the  barn- 
yard were  flanked  with  a  deep  wind-break  of  corn- 
fodder  that  ran  on  down  the  old  worm-fence  each 
side  of  the  lane  in  yellow  zigzag  walls ;  the  big 
wooden  pump  under  the  turn-o'-lane  tree  by  the  barn 


48  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

was  bundled  up  and  buttoned  to  the  tip  of  its  drip- 
ping nose;  the  bees  by  the  currant  bushes  were 
doubled-hived,  the  strawberries  covered  with  hay, 
the  wood  all  split  and  piled,  the  cellar  windows 
packed,  and  the  storm-doors  put  on. 

The  very  cows  had  put  on  an  extra  coat,  and 
turned  their  collars  up  about  their  ears ;  the  turkeys 
had  changed  their  roost  from  the  ridge-pole  of  the 
corn-crib  to  the  pearmain  tree  on  the  sunny  side  of 
the  wagon-house;  the  squirrels  had  finished  their 
bulky  nests  in  the  oaks ;  the  muskrats  of  the  lower 
pasture  had  completed  their  lodges;  the  whole  farm 
—  house,  barn,  fields,  and  wood-lot  —  had  shuffled 
into  its  greatcoat  and  muffler  and  settled  comfort- 
ably down  for  the  winter. 

The  old  farmhouse  was  an  invitation  to  winter. 
It  looked  its  joy  at  the  prospect  of  the  coming  cold. 
Low,  weather-worn,  mossy-shingled,  secluded  in  its 
wayward  garden  of  box  and  bleeding-hearts,  shel- 
tered by  its  tall  pines,  grape-vined,  hop-vined,  clung 
to  by  creeper  and  honeysuckle,  it  stood  where  the 
roads  divided,  halfway  between  everywhere,  un- 
painted,  unpretentious,  as  much  a  part  of  the  land- 
scape as  the  muskrat-lodge,  and,  like  the  lodge, 
roomy,  warm,  and  hospitable. 

Round  at  the  back,  under  the  wide,  open  shed,  a 
door  led  into  the  kitchen  ;  another  led  into  the  living- 
room  ;  another,  into  the  store-room ;  and  two  big, 
slanting  double-doors,  scoured  and  slippery  with 


'  THE  LANTERN  FLICKERS,  THE  MILK  FOAMS,  THE  STORIES  FLOW " 


THANKSGIVING  AT   GRANDFATHER'S     49 

four  generations  of  sliders,  covered  the  cavernous 
way  into  the  cellar.  But  they  let  the  smell  of  apples 
up,  as  the  garret  door  let  the  smell  of  sage  and  thyme 
come  down ;  while  from  the  door  of  the  store-room, 
mingling  with  the  odor  of  apples  and  herbs,  filling 
the  whole  house  and  all  my  early  memories,  came 
the  smell  of  broom-corn,  came  the  sound  of  Grand- 
father's loom. 

For  Grandfather  in  the  winter  made  brooms  — 
the  best  brooms,  I  think,  that  ever  were  made.  The 
tall  broom-corn  was  grown  on  the  farm  in  the  sum- 
mer, ripened  and  cut  and  seeded,  and  then,  as  soon 
as  winter  set  in,  was  loomed  and  wired  and  sewed 
into  brooms. 

But  the  cured  and  seeded  broom-corn  was  not  the 
main  thing,  after  all,  that  was  brought  in  for  the 
winter.  Behind  the  stove  in  the  kitchen,  stood  the 
sweet-potato  box  (a  sweet  potato,  you  know,  must 
be  kept  dry  and  warm).  An  ample,  ten-barrel  box  it 
was,  fresh-papered  like  the  walls,  full  of  Jersey  sweets 
that  were  sweet  —  long,  golden,  syrupy  potatoes, 
such  as  grow  only  in  the  warm  sandy  soil  of  south- 
ern New  Jersey. 

Against  that  big  box  in  Grandmother's  kitchen 
stood  the  sea-chest,  fresh  with  the  same  kitchen 
paper  and  piled  with  wood.  There  was  another  such 
chest  in  the  living-room  near  the  old  fireplace,  and 
still  another  in  Grandfather's  work-room  behind  the 
"template"  stove. 


50  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

But  wood  and  warmth  and  sweet  smells  were  not 
all.  There  was  music  also,  the  music  of  life,  of  young 
life  and  of  old  life  —  grandparents,  grandchildren 
(about  twenty-eight  of  the  latter).  There  were  seven 
of  us  alone  —  a  girl  at  each  end  of  the  seven  and 
one  in  the  middle.  Thanksgiving  always  found  us 
all  at  Grandfather's  and  brimming  full  of  thanks. 

That,  of  course,  was  long,  long  ago.  Things  are 
different  nowadays.  There  are  as  many  grandfathers, 
I  suppose,  as  ever  ;  but  they  don't  make  brooms  in 
the  winter  and  live  on  farms. 

They  live  in  flats.  The  old  farm  with  its  open  acres 
has  become  a  city  street ;  the  generous  old  farmhouse 
has  become  a  speaking-tube,  kitchenette,  and  bath  — 
all  the  "modern  conveniences  ";  the  cows  have  evapo- 
rated into  convenient  cans  of  condensed  "  milk  "  ;  the 
ten-barrel  box  of  potatoes  has  changed  into  a  conven- 
ient ten-pound  bag,  the  wood-pile  into  a  convenient 
five-cent  bundle  of  blocks  tied  up  with  a  tarred  string, 
the  fireplace  into  a  convenient  gas  log,  the  seven 
children  into  one  or  none,  or  into  a  little  bull-terrier 
pup. 

But  is  it  so  ?  No,  it  is  not  so  —  not  so  of  a  million 
homes.  For  there  is  many  an  old-fashioned  farm- 
house still  in  the  country,  and  many  a  new-fashioned 
city  house  where  there  are  more  human  children  than 
little  bull-terrier  pups. 

And  it  is  not  so  in  my  home,  which  is  neither  a 
real  farm  nor  yet  a  city  home.  For  here  are  some 


THANKSGIVING   AT   GRANDFATHER'S     51 

small  boys  who  live  very  much  as  I  did  when  I  was 
a  boy.  No,  they  are  not  farmer's  boys  ;  for  I  am  not 
a  farmer,  but  only  a  "  commuter  "  •  —  if  you  know 
what  that  is.  I  go  into  a  great  city  for  my  work ; 
and  when  the  day's  work  is  done,  I  turn  homeward 
here  to  Mullein  Hill  —  far  out  in  the  country.  And 
when  the  dark  November  nights  come,  I  hang  the 
lantern  high  in  the  stable,  as  my  father  used  to  do, 
while  four  shining  faces  gather  round,  as  four  small 
boys  seat  themselves  on  upturned  buckets  behind  the 
cow.  The  lantern  flickers,  the  milk  foams,  the  stories 
flow  —  "  Bucksy  "  stories  of  the  noble  red-man  ;  and 
stories  of  the  heroes  of  old ;  and  marvelous  stories 
of  that  greatest  hero  of  all  —  their  father,  far  away 
yonder  when  he  was  a  boy,  when  there  were  so  many 
interesting  things  to  do  on  Grandfather's  farm  just 
before  Thanksgiving  Day. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A   CHAPTER    OF   THINGS   TO    DO    THIS    FALL 
I 


OU  ought  to  go  out  into  the  fields 
and  woods  as  many  as  six  times  this 
fall,  even  though  you  have  to  take  a  long 
street-car  ride  to  get  out  of  the  city.  Let  me 
give  you  just  six  bits  of  sound  advice  about 
going  afield :  — 

First,  go  often  to  the  same  place,  so  that 
you  can  travel  over  and  over  the  same  ground 
and  become  very  familiar  with  it.  The  first 
trip  you  will  not  see  much  but  woods  and 
fields.  But  after  that,  each  succeeding  walk 
will  show  you  particular  things  —  this  dead  tree 
with  the  flicker's  hole,  that  old  rail-pile  with  its 
rabbit-hole  —  until,  by  and  by,  you  will  know  every 
turn  and  dip,  every  pile  of  stones,  every  hole  and 


THINGS  TO  DO  THIS  FALL  53 

nest ;  and  you  will  find  a  thousand  things  that  on 
the  first  trip  you  didn't  dream  were  there. 

Secondly,  when  you  go  into  the  woods,  go  expect- 
ing to  see  something  in  particular  —  always  looking 
for  some  particular  nest,  bird,  heast,  or  plant.  You 
may  not  find  that  particular  thing,  but  your  eyes 
will  be  sharpened  by  your  expectation  and  purpose, 
and  you  will  be  pretty  sure  therefore  to  see  some- 
thing. At  worst  you  will  come  back  with  a  disap- 
pointment, and  that  is  better  than  coming  back 
without  a  thing ! 

Thirdly,  go  off  when  you  can  alone.  Don't  be 
selfish,  unsociable,  offish — by  no  means  that.  But 
you  must  learn  to  use  your  own  eyes  and  ears,  think 
your  own  thoughts,  make  your  own  discoveries,  and 
follow  the  hints  and  hopes  that  you  alone  can  have. 
Go  with  the  school  class  for  a  picnic,  but  for  wood- 
craft go  alone. 

Fourthly,  learn  first  of  all  in  the  woods  to  be  as 
silent  as  an  Indian  and  as  patient  as  a  granite  rock. 
Practice  standing  still  when  the  mosquitoes  sing, 
and  fixing  your  mind  on  the  hole  under  the  stump 
instead  of  the  hole  the  mosquito  is  boring  between 
your  eyes. 

Fifthly,  go  out  in  every  variety  of  weather,  and 
at  night,  as  well  as  during  the  day.  There  are  three 
scenes  to  every  day  —  morning,  noon,  and  early  even- 
ing—  when  the  very  actors  themselves  are  changed. 
To  one  who  has  never  been  in  the  fields  at  daybreak, 


54 


THE   FALL   OF   THE  YEAR 


the  world  is  so  new,  so  fresh  and  strange,  as  to  seem 
like  a  different  planet.  And  then  the  evening  — 
the  hour  of  dusk  and  the  deeper,  darker  night !  Go 
once  this  autumn  into  the  woods  at  night. 

And  lastly,  don't  go  into  the  woods  as  if  they 
were  a  kind  of  Noah's  Ark  ;  for  you  cannot  enter 
the  door  and  find  all  the  animals  standing  in  a  row. 
You  will  go  a  great  many  times  before  seeing  them 
all.  Don't  be  disappointed  if  they  are  not  so  plenti- 
ful there  as  they  are  in  your  books.  Nature  books 
are  like  menageries  —  the  animals  are  caught  and 
caged  for  you.  The  woods  are  better  than  books 
and  just  as  full  of  things,  as  soon  as  you  learn  to 

take  a  hint,  to 
read  the  signs, 
to  put  two  and 
two    together 
and    get  — 
four  —  four 
paws  —  black 
paws,  with  a  long  black  snout,  a  big  ringed  and 
tail  —  a  coon  ! 


Whether  you  live  in  the  heart  of  a  great  city  or  in 
the  open  country,  you  ought  to  begin  this  fall  to  learn 
the  names  and  habits  of  the  birds  and  beasts  (snakes, 
lizards,  turtles,  toads  ! )  that  live  wild  in  your  region. 
Even  when  all  the  summer  birds  have  gone  south 


THINGS  TO  DO  THIS  FALL 


55 


for  the  winter,  there  will  remain  in  your  woods  and 
fields  crows,  jays,  juncos,  tree  sparrows,  chickadees, 
kinglets,  nuthatches,  screech  owls,  barred  owls, — 
perhaps  even  snowy  owls,  —  quails,  partridges,  gold- 
finches, with  now  and  then  a  flock  of  crossbills, 


snow  buntings,  and  other  northern  visitors,  and 
even  a  flicker,  robin,  and  bluebird  left  over  from  the 
fall  migrations.  These  are  plenty  to  begin  on ;  and 
yet,  as  they  are  so  few,  compared  with  the  numbers 
of  the  summer,  the  beginner's  work  is  thus  all  the 
easier  in  the  autumn. 


Ill 

You  should  go  out  one  of  these  frosty  mornings 
for  chestnuts,  if  they  grow  in  your  woods;  or  for 
"  shagbarks,"  if  you  live  in  New  England ;  for 
black  walnuts,  if  you  live  in  the  Middle  States ;  for 
pecan  nuts,  if  you  live  in  the  Gulf  States ;  for  but- 


56  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

ternuts,  if  you  live  in  the 
states  of  the 
Middle  West ; 

for  —  what  kind  of  nuts  can 
you  not  go  for,  if  you  live  in 
California  where  they  make   every- 
thing grow !  It  matters  little  whether 
you   go   for  paper-shelled   English 
walnuts  or  for  plate-armored  pignuts 
so  long  as  you  go.  It  is  the  going 
£y   that  is  worth  while. 

IV 

You  ought  to  go  "  cocooning "  this  fall  —  to 
sharpen  your  eyes.  But  do  not  go  often  ;  for  once 
you  begin  to  look  for  cocoons,  you  are  in  danger  of 
seeing  nothing  else  — except  brown  leaves.  And  how 
many  brown  leaves,  that  look  like  cocoons,  there 
are  !  They  tease  you  to  vexation.  But  a  day  now  and 
then  "  cocooning  "  will  do  you  no  harm  ;  indeed, 
it  will  cultivate  your  habit  of  concentration  and  close 
seeing  as  will  no  other  kind  of  hunting  I  know. 

Bring  home  with  you  the  big  brown  silky  cocoons 
of  cecropia — the  largest  cocoon  you  will  find, 
lashed  all  along  its  length  to  its  twig,  and  usually 
near  the  ground.  Look  on  the  black  cherry,  the 
barberry,  sassafras,  and  roadside  and  garden  trees 
for  the  harder,  whiter  cocoon  of  the  promethea 
moth.  This  hangs  by  its  tip,  because  the  caterpillar 


THINGS  TO  DO  THIS  FALL 


57 


has  begun  his  house  by  using  the  leaf,  spinning  it 
into  the  cocoon  as  part  of  its  walls,  much  as  does 
the  wretched  "  brown-tail."  The  gray  cocoons,  or 
rather  nests,  of  this  "brown-tail"  moth  you  must 
bring  home  to  burn,  for  they  are  one  of  our  greatest 
pests.  You  will  find  them  full  of  tiny  caterpillars  as 
you  tear  them  open. 

Bring  home  your  collection  and,  with  the  help  of 
such  a  book  as  "  Moths  and  Butterflies  "  by  Mary  C. 
Dickerson,  identify  them  and  hang  them  up  for 
their  "  coming  out "  in  the  spring. 


near  the 


If  you  live  in  the  city,  you  ought  to  go  up  fre- 
quently to  your  V  roof  and  watch  for  the  birds 
that  fly  over.  If  mV  in  one  of  our  many  cities 
-  JpT"  water,  you  will  have 
a  chance  that  those 
in  the  country  sel- 
dom have,  of  seeing 
the  seabirds  —  the 
~N  white  her- 
ring gulls 


(the  young  gulls  are  brown,  and  look  like  a  different 


58 


THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 


species),  as  they  pass  over  whistling  plaintively,  and 
others  of  the  wild  seafowl,  that  merely  to  hear  and 
see  in  the  smoky  air  of  the  city,  is  almost  as  refresh- 
ing as  an  ocean  voyage.  Then  there  are  the  parks 
and  public  gardens  —  never  without  their  birds  and, 
at  the  fall  migrating  time,  often  sheltering  the  very 
rarest  of  visitors. 


VI 

In  order  to  give  point  and  purpose  to  one  of  these 
autumn  outings,  you  should   take  your  basket,  or 
botanizing  can,  and  scour  the 
woods  and  fields  for  autumn 
berries.     No    bunch    of 
flowers  in  June  could 
be  lovelier   than   the 
bunch  of  autumn  ber- 
ries    that     you     can 
gather    from   thicket 
and  wayside  to  carry 
home.    And  then, 
in  order  to  enjoy 
the   trip  all  over 
again,  read  James 
Buckham's  exqui- 
site     story,      "  A 
Quest     for     Fall 

Berries,"  in  his  book,  "  Where  Town  and  Country 
Meet." 


THINGS  TO  DO  THIS  FALL  59 

VII 

Take  your  botany  can  on  a  trip  toward  the  end 
of  November  and  see  how  many  blossoming  flowers 
you  can  bring  home  from  the  woods.  Wild  flowers 
after  Thanksgiving  in  any  northern  state?  Make 
the  search,  on  all  the  southern  slopes  and  in  all  the 
sheltered  corners  and  see  for  yourselves.  When  you 
get  back,  you  will  want  to  read  Mr.  Bradford  Torrey 's 
account  of  the  flowers  that  he  found  blossoming  out 
of  doors  in  New  England  in  the  month  of  Novem- 
ber. But  who  is  Mr.  Bradford  Torrey  ?  and  where 
can  you  find  this  account  of  his  November  walk  ? 
You  do  not  know?  Well,  then  there  is  something 
more  for  you  to  do  this  fall. 

VIII 

While  you  are  finding  out  who  Mr.  Torrey  is  and 
what  he  has  written,  you  should  also  get  acquainted 
with  John  Burroughs,  Olive  Thorne  Miller,  Thoreau, 
Frank  Bolles,  William  Hamilton  Gibson,  C.  C.  Ab- 
bott, Edward  B reck,  Gilbert  White,  and —  but  these 
will  do  for  this  fall.  Don't  fail  to  read  dear  old 
Gilbert  White's  "  Natural  History  of  Selborne "  ; 
though  perhaps  we  grown-ups  like  it  better  than  you 
may  this  fall.  If  you  don't  understand  Gilbert  White, 
then  read  this  year  "  The  Life  of  a  Scotch  Natural- 
ist "by  Samuel  Smiles,  and  Arabella  Buckley's  two 
books,  "  Life  and  Her  Children,"  and  "  Winners  in 
Life's  Race." 


60      THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

IX 

You  ought  to  tie  up  a  piece  of  suet  for  the  birds ; 
keep  your  cat  in  the  house,  except  during  the  mid- 
dle of  the  day,  and  —  but  I  shall  tell  you  no  more. 
There  is  no  end  to  the  interesting  things  to  do  in 
your  study  of  the  out  of  doors  and  in  your  tramps 
afield  this  autumn. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE    MUSKRATS    ARE    BUILDING 


E  have  had  a  week  of  almost  un- 
•//     broken  rain,  and  the  water  is  stand- 
ing over  the  swampy  meadow.    It 
is  a  dreary  stretch,  —  this  wet,  sedgy 
land  in  the  cold  twilight,  —  drearier 
than  any  part  of  the  woods  or  the 
upland   pastures.     They  are    empty; 
' '  '   ^     but  the  meadow  is  flat  and  wet,  it  is 
naked   and   all  unsheltered.    And   a 
November  night  is  falling. 

The  darkness  deepens.  A  raw  wind  is  rising.  At 
nine  o'clock  the  moon  swings  round  and  full  to  the 
crest  of  the  ridge,  and  pours  softly  over.  I  button 
my  heavy  ulster  close,  and  in  my  rubber  boots  go 
down  to  the  stream  and  follow  it  out  to  the  middle 
of  the  meadow,  where  it  meets  the  main  ditch.  There 


62  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

is  a  sharp  turn  here  toward  the  swamp ;  and  here  at 
the  bend,  behind  a  clump  of  black  alders,  I  sit  quietly 
down  and  wait. 

I  have  come  out  to  the  bend  to  watch  the  muskrats 
building;  for  that  small  mound  up  the  ditch  is  not 
an  old  haycock,  but  a  half-finished  muskrat  house. 

As  I  wait,  the  moon  climbs  higher  over  the  woods. 
The  water  on  the  meadow  shivers  in  the  light.  The 
wind  bites  through  my  heavy  coat  and  drives  me 
back,  but  not  before  I  have  seen  one,  two,  three 
little  creatures  scaling  the  walls  of  the  house  with 
loads  of  mud-and-reed  mortar.  I  am  driven  back  by 
the  cold,  but  not  before  I  know  that  here  in  the 
desolate  meadow  is  being  rounded  off  a  lodge,  thick- 
walled  and  warm,  and  proof  against  the  longest, 
bitterest  of  winters. 

This  is  near  the  end  of  November.  My  fire-wood 
is  in  the  cellar ;  I  am  about  ready  to  put  on  the 
double-windows  and  the  storm-doors.  The  muskrats 
are  even  now  putting  on  theirs,  for  their  house  is 
all  but  finished.  Winter  is  at  hand :  but  we  are  pre- 
pared, the  muskrats  and  I. 

Throughout  the  summer  the  muskrats  had  no 
house,  only  their  tunnels  into  the  sides  of  the  ditch, 
their  roadways  out  into  the  grass,  and  their  beds 
under  the  tussocks  or  among  the  roots  of  the  old 
stumps.  All  those  months  the  water  was  low  in  the 
ditch,  and  the  beds  among  the  tussocks  were  safe 
and  dry  enough. 


"TO-NIGHT  THERE  IS  NO  LOAFING  ABOUT  THE  LODGE1 


THE   MUSKRATS   ARE  BUILDING         63 

Now  the  November  rains  have  filled  river  and 
ditch,  flooded  the  tunnels,  and  crept  up  into  the 
beds  under  the  tussocks.  Even  a  muskrat  will  creep 
out  of  his  bed  when  cold,  wet  water  creeps  in. 
What  shall  he  do  for  shelter?  He  knows.  And  long 
before  the  rains  begin,  he  picks  out  the  place  for  a 
house.  He  does  not  want  to  leave  his  meadow,  there- 
fore the  only  thing  to  do  is  to  build, — move  from 
under  the  tussock  out  upon  the  top  of  the  tussock; 
and  here,  in  its  deep,  wiry  grass,  make  a  new  bed  high 
and  dry  above  the  rising  water ;  and  close  this  new 
bed  in  with  walls  that  circle  and  dome,  and  defy  the 
very  winter. 

Such  a  house  will  require  a  great  deal  of  work 
to  build.  Why  should  not  two  or  three  muskrats 
combine  —  make  the  house  big  enough  to  hold 
them  all,  save  labor  and  warmth,  too,  and,  withal, 
live  sociably  together?  So  they  left,  each  one  his 
single  bed,  and,  joining  efforts,  started,  about  the 
middle  of  October,  to  build  this  winter  house. 

Slowly,  night  after  night,  the  domed  walls  have 
been  rising,  although  for  several  nights  at  a  time  I 
could  see  no  apparent  progress  with  the  work.  The 
builders  were  in  no  hurry.  The  cold  was  far  off.  But 
it  is  coming^  and  to-night  it  feels  near  and  keen. 
And  to-night  there  is  no  loafing  about  the  lodge. 

When  this  house  is  done,  when  the  last  hod  of 
mud  plaster  has  been  laid  on,  —  then  the  rains  may 
descend  and  the  floods  come,  but  it  will  not  fall.  It 


64  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

is  built  upon  a  tussock ;  and  a  tussock  —  did  you 
ever  try  to  pull  up  a  tussock? 

Winter  may  descend,  and  boys  and  foxes  may 
come  —  and  they  will  come,  but  not  before  the  walls 
are  frozen.  Then,  let  them  come.  The  house  will 
stand.  It  is  boy-proof,  almost ;  it  is  entirely  rain-, 
cold-,  and  fox-proof.  I  have  often  seen  where  the 
fox  has  gone  round  and  round  the  house  in  the 
snow,  and  where,  at  places,  he  has  attempted  to  dig 
into  the  frozen  mortar.  But  it  was  a  foot  thick,  as 
hard  as  flint,  and  utterly  impossible  for  his  pick  and 
shovel. 

I  said  the  floods,  as  well  as  the  fox,  may  come. 
So  they  may,  ordinarily;  but  along  in  March,  when 
one  comes  as  a  freshet  and  rises  to  the  dome  of  the 
house,  then  it  fills  the  bed-chamber  to  the  ceiling 
and  drowns  the  dwellers  out.  I  remember  a  freshet 
once  in  the  end  of  February  that  flooded  Lupton's 
Pond  and  drove  the  muskrats  of  the  whole  pond 
village  to  their  ridgepoles,  to  the  bushes,  and  to 
whatever  wreckage  the  waters  brought  along. 

"  The  best-laid  schemes  o'  mice  and  men 
Gang  aft  agley  " 

— and  of  muskrats,  too. 

But  not  very  often  do  the  muskrats'  plans  go  thus 
agley.  For  muskrats  and  wood  mice  and  birds  and 
bees,  and  even  the  very  trees  of  the  forest,  have  a  kind 
of  natural  foresight.  They  all  look  ahead,  at  the  ap- 
proach of  autumn,  and  begin  to  provide  against  the 


THE   MUSKRATS  ARE  BUILDING          65 

(Joining  cold.  Yet,  weather-wise  as  a  muskrat  may  be, 
still  he  cannot  know  all  that  may  happen ;  he  can- 
not be  ready  for  everything.  And  so,  if  now  and 
then,  he  should  prove  foresight  to  be  vain,  he  only 
shows  that  his  plans  and  our  plans,  his  life  and  our 
lives,  are  very  much  alike. 

Usually,  however,  the  muskrat's  plans  work  out 
as  he  would  have  them.  His  foresight  proves  to  be 
equal  to  all  that  the  winter  can  bring.  On  the 
coldest  winter  days  I  shall  look  out  over  the  bleak 
white  waste  to  where  his  house  shows,  a  tiny  mound 
in  the  snow,  and  think  of  him  safe  and  warm  inside, 
as  safe  and  warm  as  I  am,  in  my  house,  here  on  the 
hilltop. 

Indeed,  I  think  the  muskrat  will  be  the  warmer  ; 
for  my  big  house  here  on  Mullein  Hill  is  sometimes 
cold.  And  the  wind !  If  only  I  could  drive  the  winter 
wind  away  from  the  corners  of  the  house !  But 
the  house  down  in  the  meadow  has  no  corners.  It 
has  walls,  mud  walls,  so  thick  and  round  that  the 
shrieking  wind  sweeps  past  unheard  by  the  dwellers 
within ;  and  all  unheeded  the  cold  creeps  over  and 
over  the  low  thatch,  to  crawl  back  and  stiffen  upon 
the  meadow. 

The  doors  of  this  meadow  house  swing  wide  open 
throughout  the  winter;  for  they  are  in  the  bottom 
of  the  house,  beneath  the  water,  where  only  the 
muskrat  can  enter.  Just  outside  the  doors,  down 
under  the  water  and  the  roof  of  ice  that  covers  all 


66  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

the  flooded  meadow,  are  fresh  calamus  roots,  afflB 
iris  and  arum — food  in  abundance,  no  matter  how 
long  the  winter  lasts. 

No,  the  winter  has  not  yet  come;  but  it  is  coming, 
for  the  muskrats  are  building.  Let  it  come.  Let  the 
cold  crawl  stiff  and  gray  across  the  meadow.  Let 
the  whirling  snow  curl  like  smoke  about  the  pointed 
top  of  the  little  tepee  down  by  the  meadow  ditch. 
Let  the  north  wind  do  its  worst.  For  what  care  the 
dwellers  in  that  thick-walled  lodge  beneath  the  snow? 
Down  under  the  water  their  doors  are  open;  their 
roadways  up  the  ditches  as  free  as  in  the  summer ; 
and  the  stems  of  the  sedges  just  as  juicy  and  pink 
and  tender. 

The  muskrats  are  building.  The  buds  are  leav- 
ing. Winter  is  coming.  I  must  get  out  my  own 
storm-windows  and  double-doors  ;  for  even  now  a 
fire  is  blazing  cheerily  on  my  wide,  warm  hearth. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE    NORTH    WIND    DOTH   BLOW 

"  The  north  wind  doth  blow, 
And  we  shall  have  snow, 
And  what  will  poor  Robin  do  then, 
Poor  thing  ?  " 


ND  what  will  Muskrat  do?  and  Chip- 
munk ?  and  Whitefoot,  the  wood 
mouse?  and  Chickadee?  and  the 
whole  world  of  poor  things  out 
of  doors? 

Never  fear.  Robin  knows  as  well  as  you  that 
the  north  wind  doth  blow,  and  is  now  far  away  on 
his  journey  to  the  South ;  Muskrat  knows,  too,  and 
is  building  his  warm  winter  lodge ;  Chipmunk  has 
already  made  his  bed  deep  down  under  the  stone 
wall,  where  zero  weather  is  unheard  of ;  Whitefoot, 
the  wood  mouse,  has  stored  his  hollow  poplar  stub 
full  of  acorns,  and,  taking  possession  of  Robin's  de- 
serted nest  near  by,  has  roofed  it  and  lined  it  and 
turned  it  into  a  cosey,  cold-proof  house,  while  Chick- 


68  THE   FALL   OF  THE   YEAR 

adee,  dear  thing  —  has  done  nothing  at  all.  Not  so 

much  as  a  bug  or  a  single  beetle's  egg  has  he  stored 

up  for  the  winter.  But  he  knows  where  there  is  a 

big  piece  of  suet 

for  him  on  a 

certain 

lilac 

bush. 

And  he 

knows 

where  there  is  a 

snug  little  hole  in 

a  certain  elm  tree  limb.  The  north  wind  may  blow, 

blow,  blow !    It  cannot    get    through    Chickadee's 

feathers,  nor  daunt  for  one  moment  his  brave  little 

heart. 

The  north  wind  sweeping  the  bare  stubble  fields 
and  winding  its  shivering  horn  through  the  leafless 
trees  does  sometimes  pierce  my  warm  coat  and  strike 
a  chill  into  my  heart.  Then  how  empty  and  cold  seems 
the  outdoor  world !  How  deadly  the  touch  of  the  win- 
ter !  How  fearful  the  prospect  of  the  coming  cold  ! 

Does  Muskrat  think  so  ?  Does  Whitefoot  ?  Does 
Chickadee  ?  Not  at  all,  for  they  are  ready. 

The  preparations  for  hard  weather  may  be  seen 
going  on  all  through  the  autumn,  beginning  as  far 
back  as  the  flocking  of  the  swallows  late  in  July.  Up 
to  that  time  no  one  had  thought  of  a  coming  winter, 
it  would  seem ;  but,  one  day,  there  upon  the  tele- 


THE   NORTH  WIND   DOTH   BLOW         69 

graph-wires  were  the  swallows  —  the  first  sign  that 
the  getting  ready  for  winter  has  begun. 

The  great  migratory  movements  of  the  birds  are 
very  mysterious ;  but  they  were  in  the  beginning,  I 
think,  and  are  still,  for  the  most  part,  mere  shifts  to 
escape  the  cold.  Yet  not  so  much  to  escape  the  cold 
itself  do  the  birds  migrate,  as  to  find  a  land  of  food. 
When  the  northland  freezes,  when  river  and  lake  are 
sealed  beneath  the  ice  and  the  soil  is  made  hard  as 
flint,  then  the  food  supplies  for  most  of  the  birds 
are  utterly  cut  off,  causing  them  to  move  southward 
ahead  of  the  cold,  or  starve. 

There  are,  however,  a  few  of  the  seed-eating  birds, 
like  the  quail,  and  some  of  the  insect-eaters,  like  the 
chickadee,  who  are  so  well  provided  for  that  they 
can  stay  and  survive  the  winter.  But  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  birds,  because  they  have  no  storehouse 
nor  barn,  must  take  wing  and  fly  away  from  the  lean 
and  hungry  cold. 

And  I  am  glad  to  see  them  go.  The  thrilling  honk 
of  the  flying  wild  geese  out  of  the  November  sky 
tells  me  that  the  hollow  forests  and  closing  bays  of 
the  vast  desolate  North  are  empty  now,  except  for 
the  few  creatures  that  find  food  and  shelter  in  the 
snow. 

Here  in  my  own  small  woods  and  marshes  there 
is  much  getting  ready,  much  comforting  assurance 
that  Nature  is  quite  equal  to  herself,  that  winter  is 
not  approaching  unawares.  There  will  be  great  lack, 


70  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

no  doubt,  before  there  is  plenty  again  ;  there  will  be 
suffering  and  death.  But  what  with  the  building, 
the  strange  deep  sleeping,  and  the  harvesting,  there 
will  be  also  much  comfortable,  much  joyous  and 
sociable,  living. 

Long  before  the  muskrats  began  to  build,  even 
before  the  swallows  commenced  to  flock,  my  chip- 
munks started  their  win- 
ter stores.  I  don't  know 
which  began  his  work 
first,  which  kept  harder 
at  it,  Chipmunk  or  the  provident  ant. 
The  ant  has  a  great  reputation  for  thrift,  and  verses 
have  been  written  about  her.  But  Chipmunk  is  just 
as  thrifty.  So  is  the  busy  bee. 

It  is  the  thought  of  approaching  winter  that  keeps 
the  bee  busy  far  beyond  her  summer  needs.  Much 
of  her  labor  is  entirely  for  the  winter.  By  the  first 
of  August  she  has  filled  the  brood  chamber  of  the 
hive  with  honey  —  forty  pounds  of  it,  enough  for 
the  hatching  bees  and  for  the  whole  colony  until  the 
willows  tassel  again.  But  who  knows  what  the  winter 
may  be?  how  cold  and  long  drawn  out  into  the 
coming  May  ?  So  the  harvesting  is  pushed  with  vigor 
on,  until  the  frosts  kill  the  last  of  the  autumn  asters 
—  on,  until  fifty,  a  hundred,  or  even  three  hundred 
pounds  of  honey  are  sealed  in  the  combs,  and  the 
colony  is  safe  should  the  sun  not  shine  again  for  a 
year  and  a  day. 


THE  NORTH  WIND  DOTH  BLOW    71 

The  last  of  the  asters  have  long  since  gone ;  so 
have  the  witch-hazels.  All  is  quiet  about  the  hives. 
The  bees  have  formed  into  their  warm  winter  clusters 
upon  the  combs ;  and  except  "  when  come  the  calm, 
mild  days,"  they  will  fly  no  more  until  March  or 
April.  I  will  half  close  their  entrances  —  and  so  help 
them  to  put  on  their  storm-doors. 

The  whole  out  of  doors  around  me  is  like  a  great 
beehive,  stored  and  sealed  for  the  winter,  its  swarm- 
ing life  close-clustered,  and  safe  and  warm  against 
the  coming  cold. 

I  stand  along  the  edge  of  the  hillside  here  and 
look  down  the  length  of  its  frozen  slope.  There  is 
no  sign  of  life.  The  brown  leaves  have  drifted  into 
the  mouths  of  the  woodchuck  holes,  as  if  every 
burrow  were  forsaken ;  sand  and  sticks  have  washed 
in,  too,  littering  and  choking  the  doorways.  A 
stranger  would  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  all  of  my 
forty-six  woodchucks  are  gently  snoring  at  the  bot- 
toms of  these  old  uninteresting  holes.  Yet  here  they 
are,  and  quite  out  of  danger,  sleeping  the  «leep  of 
the  furry,  the  fat,  and  the  forgetful. 

The  woodchuck's  manner  of  providing  for  winter 
is  very  curious.  Winter  spreads  far  and  fast,  and 
Woodchuck,  in  order  to  keep  ahead,  out  of  danger, 
would  need  wings.  But  wings  weren't  given  him. 
Must  he  perish  then?  Winter  spreads  far,  but  it 
does  not  go  deep  —  down  only  about  four  feet;  and 
Woodchuck,  if  he  cannot  escape  overland,  can, 


72  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

perhaps,  escape  underload.  So  down  he  goes  through 
the  winter,  down  into  a  mild  and  even  temperature, 
Jive  feet  away  —  only  five  feet,  but  as  far  away  from 
the  snow  and  the  cold  as  Bobolink  among  the  reeds 
of  the  distant  Orinoco. 

Indeed,  Woodchuck's  is  a  farther  journey  and 
even  more  wonderful  than  Bobolink's ;  for  these  five 
feet  carry  him  to  the  very  gates  of  death.  That  he 
will  return  with  Bobolink,  that  he  will  come  up  alive 
with  the  spring  out  of  this  dark  way,  is  passing 
strange. 

Muskrat  built  him  a  house,  and  under  the  spread- 
ing ice  turned  all  the  meadow  into  a  well-stocked 
cellar.  Beaver  built  him  a 
dam,  cut  and  an- 
.  chored  under  water 


sticks  near  his  lodge,  so  that 
he  too  would  be  under  cover 
when  the  ice  formed,  with  an 
abundance  of  tender  bark  at 
hand.  Chipmunk  spent  half  of 
his  summer  laying  up  food  near  his  underground 
nest.  But  Woodchuck  simply  digged  him  a  hole,— 
a  grave,  —  then  ate  until  no  particle  more  of  fat 
could  be  got  within  his  baggy  hide,  then  crawled 
into  his  bed  to  sleep  until  the  dawn  of  spring ! 

This  is  his  shift !  This  is  the  length  to  which  he 
goes,  because  he  has  no  wings,  and  because  he  can- 


THE  NORTH  WIND  DOTH  BLOW    73 

not  cut,  cure,  and  store  away,  in  the  depths  of  the 
stony  hillside,  clover  hay  enough  to  last  him  through 
the  winter.  The  beaver  cans  his  fresh  food  in  cold 
water ;  the  chipmunk  selects  long-keeping  things  and 
buries  them  ;  but  the  woodchuck  simply  fattens  him- 
self, then  buries  himself,  and  sleeps — and  lives! 

"  The  north  wind  doth  blow, 
And  we  shall  have  snow," 

but  what  good  reason  is  there  for  our  being  daunted 
at  the  prospect?  Robin  and  all  the  others  are  well 
prepared.  Even  the  wingless  frog,  who  is  also  with- 
out fur  or  feathers  or  fat,  even  he  has  no  fear  at 
the  sound  of  the  cold  winds.  Nature  provides  for 
him,  too,  in  her  own  motherly  way.  All  he  has  to 
do  is  to  dig  into  the  mud  at  the  bottom  of  the  ditch 
and  sleep  —  and  sometimes  freeze  ! 

No  matter.  If  the  cold  works  down  and  freezes 
him  into  the  mud,  he  never  knows.  He  will  thaw 
out  as  good  as  new ;  he  will  sing  again  for  joy  and 
love  as  soon  as  his  heart  warms  up  enough  to  beat. 
I  have  seen  frogs  frozen  into  the  middle  of  solid 
lumps  of  ice.  Drop  the  lump  on  the  floor,  and  the 
frog  would  break  out  like  a  fragment  of  the  ice 
itself.  And  this  has  happened  more  than  once  to  the 
same  frog  without  causing  him  the  least  ache  or  pain. 
He  would  gradually  limber  up,  and  croak,  and  look 
as  wise  as  ever. 

The  north  wind  may  blow,  for  it  is  by  no  means 
a  cheerless  prospect,  this  wood-and-meadow  world  of 


74  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

mine  in  the  gray  November  light.  The  grass-blades 
are  wilting,  the  old  leaves  are  falling  ;  but  no  square 
foot  of  greensward  will  the  winter  kill,  nor  a  single 
tree  perhaps  in  all  my  wood-lot.  There  will  be  little 
less  of  life  next  April  because  of  this  winter.  The 
winter  birds  will  suffer  most,  and  a  few  may  die. 

Last  February,  I  came  upon  two  partridges  in  the 
snow,  dead  of  hunger  and  cold.  It  was  after  an  ex- 
tremely long  "  severe  spell " ;  but  this  was  not  the  only 
cause.  These  two  birds  since  fall  had  been  feeding 
regularly  in  the  dried  fodder  corn  that  stood  shocked 
over  the  field.  One  day  all  the  corn  was  carted  away. 
The  birds  found  their  supply  of  food  suddenly  cut  off, 
and,  unused  to  foraging  the  fence-rows  and  tangles 
for  wild  seeds,  they  seem  to  have  given  up  the  strug- 
gle at  once,  although  within  easy  reach  of  plenty. 

Hardly  a  minute's  flight  away  was  a  great  thicket 
of  dwarf  sumac  covered  with  berries.  There  were 

bayberries,  rose- 
hips,  greenbrier, 
'  bittersweet,black 

alder,  and  checkerberries 
^ia^    *^ey    might    have 
found.  These  berries  would  have 

^een  kar(*  ^are>  doubtless,  a^er 

an  unstinted  supply  of  sweet  corn; 
but  still  they  were  plentiful  and  would  have  been 
sufficient  had  the  birds  made  use  of  them. 

The  smaller  birds  that  stay  through  the  winter, 


THE  NORTH  WIND  DOTH  BLOW    75 

like  the  tree  sparrow  and  the  junco,  feed  upon  the 
weeds  and  grasses  that  ripen  unmolested  along  the 
roadsides  and  in  the  waste  places.  A  mixed  flock  of 
these  small  birds  lived  several  days  last  winter  upon 
the  seeds  of  the  ragweed  in  my  mowing-field. 

The  weeds  came  up  in  the  early  fall  after  the  field 
was  sowed  to  clover  and  timothy.  They  threatened 
to  choke  out  the  grass.  I  looked  at  them  and  thought 
with  dismay  of  how  they  would  cover  the  field  by 
another  fall.  After  a  time  the  snow  came,  a  foot 
and  a  half  of  it,  till  only  the  tops  of  the  seedy  rag- 
weeds showed  above  the  level  white.  Then  the  jun- 
cos,  goldfinches,  and  tree  sparrows  came;  and  there 
was  a  five-day  shucking  of  ragweed  seed  on  the 
crusty  snow — five  days  of  life  and  plenty  for  the 
birds. 

Then  I  looked  again,  and  thought  that  weeds  and 
winters,  which  were  made  when  the  world  was  made 
—  that  even  ragweeds  and  winters  have  a  part  in 
the  beautiful  divine  scheme  of  things. 

"  The  north  wind  doth  blow 
And  we  shall  have  snow  "  — 

but  the  wild  geese  are  going  over ;  the  wild  mice 
have  harvested  their  acorns ;  the  bees  have  clustered ; 
the  woodchucks  have  gone  to  sleep ;  the  muskrats 
have  nearly  finished  their  lodge ;  the  sap  in  the  big 
hickory  tree  by  the  side  of  the  house  has  crept  down 
out  of  reach  of  the  fingers  of  the  frost.  And  what 
has  become  of  Robin,  poor  thing  ? 


CHAPTER  X 

AN   OUTDOOR   LESSON 

HAVE  had  many  a  person  ask  me,  "  What 
is  the  best  way  to  learn  about  the  out  of 
doors  ?  "  and  I  always  answer,  "  Don't  try 
to  learn  about  it,  but  first  go  out  of  the 
house  and  get  into  the  out  of  doors.  Then 
open  both  eyes,  use  both  of  your  ears,  and 
stand  in  one  place  stock  still  as  long  as 
you  can ;  and  you  will  soon  know  the  out  of  doors 
itself,  which  is  better  than  knowing  about  it." 

"  But,"  says  my  learner,  "  if  I  go  out  of  the  house, 
I  don't  get  into  the  out  of  doors  at  all,  but  into  a 
city  street ! " 

Look  there — in  the  middle  of  the  street!  What 
is  it?  An  English  sparrow  ?  Yes,  an  English  sparrow 
—  six  English  sparrows.  Are  they  not  a  part  of  the 
out  of  doors?  And  look  up  there,  over  your  head  — 
a  strip  of  sky  ?  Yes  —  is  not  a  strip  of  blue  sky  a  part 
of  the  out  of  doors? 

Now  let  me  tell  you  how  I  learned  an  outdoor 
lesson  one  night  along  a  crowded  city  street. 

It  was  a  cold,  wet  night ;  and  the  thick,  foggy 
twilight,  settling  down  into  the  narrow  streets,  was 
full  of  smoke  and  smell  and  chill.  A  raw  wind  blew 
in  from  the  sea  and  sent  a  shiver  past  every  corner. 


AN  OUTDOOR  LESSON  77 

The  street  lights  blinked,  the  street  mud  glistened, 
the  street  noises  clashed  and  rattled,  and  the  street 
crowds,  poured  up  and  down  and  bore  me  along 
with  them. 

I  was  homesick  —  homesick  for  the  country.  I 
longed  to  hear  the  sound  of  the  wind  in  the  pine 
trees ;  I  longed  to  hear  the  single  far-away  bark  of  the 
dog  on  the  neighboring  farm,  or  the  bang  of  a  barn- 
door, or  the  clack  of  a  guinea  going  to  roost.  It  was 
half-past  five,  and  thousands  of  clerks  were  pouring 
from  the  closing  stores;  but  I  was  lonely,  homesick 
for  the  quiet,  the  wideness,  the  trees  and  sky  of  the 
country. 

Feeling  thus,  and  seeing  only  the  strange  faces 
all  about  me,  and  the  steep  narrow  walls  of  the  street 
high  above  me,  I  drifted  along,  until  suddenly  I 
caught  the  sound  of  bird  voices  shrill  and  sharp 
through  the  din. 

I  stopped,  but  was  instantly  jostled  out  of  the 
street,  up  against  a  grim  iron  fence,  to  find  myself 
peering  through  the  pickets  into  an  ancient  ceme- 
tery in  the  very  heart  of  Boston. 

As  I  looked,  there  loomed  up  in  the  fog  and  rain 
overhead  the  outlines  of  three  or  four  gaunt  trees, 
whose  limbs  were  as  thick  with  sparrows  as  they  had 
ever  been  with  leaves.  A  sparrow  roost !  Birds,  ten 
thousand  birds,  gone  to  roost  in  the  business  section 
of  a  great  city,  with  ten  thousand  human  beings 
passing  under  them  as  they  slept ! 


78  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

I  got  in  behind  a  big  waste-barrel  by  the  iron  fence 
and  let  the  crowd  surge  past.  It  was  such  a  sight  as 
I  had  never  seen.  I  had  seen  thousands  of  chimney 
swallows  go  to  roast  in  the  deserted  chimneys  of  a 
great  country  house ;  I  had  many  a  time  gone  down 
at  night  to  the  great  crow-roost  in  the  pines  at 
Cubby  Hollow ;  but  I  had  never  stumbled  upon  a 
bird-roost  on  a  crowded  city  street  before ! 

The  hurrying  throng  behind  me  thinned  and 
straggled  while  I  waited,  watching  by  the  iron  fence. 
The  wind  freshened,  the  mist  thickened  into  fine 
rain  that  came  slanting  down  through  the  half-lighted 
trees ;  the  sleeping  sparrows  twittered  and  shifted 
uneasily  on  the  limbs. 

The  streets  were  being  deserted.  It  was  going  to 
be  a  wild  night  on  the  water,  and  a  wild  night  in 
the  swaying,  creaking  tops  of  these  old  elm  trees. 
I  shivered  at  the  thought  of  the  sparrows  sleeping 
out  in  such  a  night  as  this,  and  turned  away  toward 
my  own  snug  roost  hardly  two  blocks  away. 

The  night  grew  wilder.  The  wind  rattled  down 
our  street  past  a  hundred  loose  shutters ;  the  rain 
slapped  against  the  windows,  and  then  stopped  as 
a  heavy  gust  curled  over  the  line  of  roofs  opposite. 
I  thought  of  the  sparrows.  Had  they  been  driven 
from  the  tossing  limbs?  Could  they  cling  fast  in 
such  a  wind,  and  could  they  sleep? 

Going  to  the  window  I  looked  down  into  the 
street.  Only  the  electric  light  at  the  corner  showed 


AN  OUTDOOR   LESSON  79 

through  the  blur  of  the  storm.  The  street  was 
empty. 

I  slipped  into  my  coat  and  went  out;  not  even  a 
policeman  was  in  sight.  Only  the  whirling  sheets  of 
rain,  only  the  wild  sounds  of  the  wind  were  with 
me.  The  lights  flared,  but  only  to  fill  the  streets 
with  fantastic  shadows  and  to  open  up  a  yawning 
cavern  in  every  deep,  dark  doorway. 

Keeping  in  the  lee  of  the  shuttered  buildings,  I 
made  my  way  to  the  sparrow  roost.  I  shall  never 
forget  the  sight !  Not  a  sparrow  had  left  his  perch, 
but  every  bird  had  now  turned,  facing  the  wind— 
breasting  the  wind,  I  should  say  ;  for  every  head 
was  under  a  wing,  as  near  as  I  could  make  out,  and 
every  breast  was  toward  the  storm.  Here,  on  the 
limbs,  as  close  as  beads  on  a  string,  they  clu-ng  and 
rocked  in  the  arms  of  the  wind,  every  one  with  his 
feathers  tight  to  his  body,  his  tail  lying  out  flat  on 
the  storm. 

Now  there  is  the  outdoor  lesson  I  learned,  and 
that  is  how  I  learned  it.  And  what  was  the  lesson  ? 
Why,  this:  that  you  are  not  shut  away  from  Nature 
even  in  the  heart  of  a  great  city ;  that  the  out  of 
doors  lies  very  close  about  you,  as  you  hurry  down 
a  crowded  city  street. 


CHAPTER  XI 

LEAFING 

10,  you  never  went  "leafing"  — 
not  unless  you  are  simon- 
pure  country-bred.  You  do 
not  know  what  the  word 
means.  You  cannot  find  it 
in  the  unabridged  diction- 
ary—  not  in  the  sense  in  which  I  am  using  it.  But 
there  are  many  good  words  we  country  people  use 
that  are  not,  perhaps,  in  the  dictionary. 

And  what  do  I  mean  by  "  leafing  "  ?  Get  down 
that  bundle  of  meal  sacks,  hitch  into  the  one-horse 
hay-rig,  throw  in  the  rakes,  and  come.  We  are  going 
into  the  woods  for  pig-bedding,  for  leaves  to  keep 
the  pigs  dry  and  warm  this  winter! 

You  never  went  after  leaves  for  the  pigs  ?  Perhaps 
you  never  even  had  a  pig.  But  a  pig  is  worth  having, 
if  only  to  see  the  comfort  he  takes  in  the  big  bed  of 
dry  leaves  you  give  him  in  the  sunny  corner  of  his 
pen.  And  if  leafing  had  no  other  reward,  the  thought 
of  the  snoozing,  snoring  pig  buried  to  his  winking 
snout  in  the  bed,  would  give  joy  and  zest  enough  to 
the  labor. 

But  leafing,  like  every  other  humble  labor,  has  its 


LEAFING  81 

own  rewards,  not  the  least  of  them  being  the  leaves 
themselves  and  the  getting  of  them ! 

We  jolt  across  the  bumpy  field,  strike  into  the 
back  wood-road,  and  turn  off  upon  an  old  stumpy 
track  over  which  cord  wood  was  carted  years  ago. 
Here  in  the  hollow  at  the  foot  of  a  high  wooded 
hill,  the  winds  have  whirled  the  oak  and  maple 
leaves  into  drifts  almost  knee-deep. 

We  are  off  the  main  road,  far  into  the  heart  of 
the  woods.  We  straddle  stumps ;  bend  down  saplings ; 
stop  while  the  horse  takes  a  bite  of  sweet  birch  ;  tack 
and  tip  and  tumble  and  back  through  the  tight 
squeezes  between  the  trees ;  and  finally,  after  a  pro- 
digious amount  of  whoa-ing  and  oh-ing  and  squeal- 
ing and  screeching,  we  land  right  side  up  and  so 
headed  that  we  can  start  the  load  out  toward  the 
open  road. 

You  can  yell  all  you  want  to  when  you  go  leafing ; 
yell  at  every  stump  you  hit ;  yell  every  time  a  limb 
knocks  off  your  hat  or  catches  you  under  the  chin ; 
yell  when  the  horse  stops  suddenly  to  browse  on  the 
twigs  and  stands  you  meekly  on  your  head  in  the 
bottom  of  the  rig.  You  can  screech  and  howl  and 
yell  like  the  wild  Indian  that  you  are,  you  can  dive 
and  wrestle  in  the  piles  of  leaves  and  cut  all  the 
crazy  capers  you  know;  for  this  is  a  Saturday,  these 
are  the  wild  woods  and  the  noisy  leaves,  and  who  is 
there  looking  on  besides  the  mocking  jays  and  the 
crows  ? 


82  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

The  leaves  pile  up.  The  wind  blows  keen  among 
the  tall,  naked  trees ;  the  dull  cloud  hangs  low  above 
the  ridge ;  and  through  the  cold  gray  of  the  maple 
swamp  below  you,  peers  the  face  of  Winter. 

You  start  up  the  ridge  with  your  rake  and  draw 
down  another  pile,  thinking,  as  you  work,  of  the 
pig.  The  thought  is  pleasing.  The  warm  glow  all 
over  your  body  strikes  into  your  heart.  You  rake 
away  as  if  it  were  your  own  bed  you  were  gathering 
—  as  really  it  is.  He  that  rakes  for  his  pig,  rakes  also 
for  himself.  A  merciful  man  is  merciful  to  his  beast ; 
and  he  that  gathers  leaves  for  his  pig  spreads  a 
blanket  of  down  over  his  own  winter  bed. 

Is  it  to  warm  my  feet  on  winter  nights  that  I  pull 
on  my  boots  at  ten  o'clock  and  go  my  round  at  the 
barn?  Yet  it  warms  my  feet  through  and  through 
to  look  into  the  stalls  and  see  the  cow  chewing  her 
cud,  and  the  horse  cleaning  up  his  supper  hay,  stand- 
ing to  his  fetlocks  in  his  golden  bed  of  new  rye- 
straw  ;  and  then,  going  to  the  pig's  pen,  to  hear  him 
snoring  louder  than  the  north  wind,  somewhere  in 
the  depths  of  his  leaf-bed,  far  out  of  sight.  It  warms 
my  heart,  too  ! 

So  the  leaves  pile  up.  How  good  a  thing  it  is  to 
have  a  pig  to  work  for !  What  zest  and  purpose  it 
lends  to  one's  raking  and  piling  and  storing !  If  I 
could  get  nothing  else  to  spend  myself  on,  I  should 
surely  get  me  a  pig.  Then,  when  I  went  to  walk  in 
the  woods,  I  should  be  obliged,  occasionally,  to  carry 


LEAFING  83 

a  rake  and  a  bag  with  me  —  much  better  things  to 
take  into  the  woods  than  empty  hands,  and  sure  to 
scratch  into  light  a  number  of  objects  that  would 
never  come  within  the  range  of  opera-glass  or  gun 
or  walking  stick.  To  see  things  through  a  twenty- 
four-toothed  rake  is  to  see  them  very  close,  as 
through  a  microscope  magnifying  twenty-four  diam- 
eters. 

And  so,  as  the  leaves  pile  up,  we  keep  a  sharp 
lookout  for  what  the  rake  uncovers  —  here,  under  a 
rotten  stump,  a  hatful  of  acorns,  probably  gathered 
by  the  white-footed  wood  mouse.  For  the  stump 
gives  at  the  touch  of  the  rake,  and  a  light  kick 
topples  it  down  the  hill,  spilling  out  a  big  nest  of 
feathers  and  three  dainty  little  creatures  that  scurry 
into  the  leaf-piles  like  streaks  of  daylight.  They  are 
the  white-footed  wood  mice,  long-tailed,  big-eared, 
and  as  clean  and  high-bred  looking  as  greyhounds. 

Combing  down  the  steep  hillside  with  our  rakes, 
we  dislodge  a  large  stone,  exposing  a  black  patch  of 
fibrous  roots  and  leaf  mould,  in  which  something 
moves  and  disappears.  Scooping  up  a  double  hand- 
ful of  the  mould,  we  capture  a  little  red-backed  sala- 
mander. 

This  is  not*  the  "red"  salamander  that  Mr. 
Burroughs  tells  us  is  "the  author  of  that  fine  plaintive 
piping  to  be  heard  more  or  less  frequently,  according 
to  the  weather,  in  our  summer  and  autumn  woods." 
His  "  red "  salamander  is  really  a  "  dull  orange, 


84  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

variegated  with  minute  specks  or  spots,"  a  species 
I  have  never  found  here  in  my  New  England 
woods. 

Nor  have  I  ever  suspected  my  red-backed  salaman- 
der of  piping;  though  he  may  do  it,  as  may  the 
angleworms,  for  aught  I  am  able  to  hear,  so  filled 
with  whir  of  iron  wheels  are  my  dull  ears.  But  listen ! 
Something  piping!  Above  the  rustle  of  the  leaves 
we  also  hear  a  "fine  plaintive"  sound — no,  a  shrill 
and  ringing  little  racket,  rather,  about  the  bigness 
of  a  penny  whistle. 

Dropping  the  rake,  we  cautiously  follow  up  the 
call — it  seems  to  speak  out  of  every  tree  trunk  —  and 
find  the  piper  clinging  to  a  twig,  no  salamander  at 
all,  but  a  tiny  tree-frog,  Pickering's  hyla,  his  little 
bagpipe  blown  almost  to  bursting  as  he  tries  to  rally 
the  scattered  summer  by  his  tiny,  mighty  "skirl." 
Take  him  nose  and  toes,  he  is  surely  as  much  as  an 
inch  long,  not  very  large  to  pipe  against  the  north 
wind  turned  loose  in  the  leafless  woods. 

We  go  back  to  our  raking.  Above  us,  among  the 
stones  of  the  slope,  hang  bunches  of  Christmas  fern ; 
around  the  foot  of  the  trees  we  uncover  trailing  clus- 
ters of  gray-green  partridge  vine,  glowing  with  crim- 
son berries;  we  rake  up  the  prince's  pine,  pipsissewa, 
creeping  Jennie,  and  wintergreen  red  with  ripe  ber- 
ries,— a  whole  bouquet  of  evergreens,  —  exquisite, 
fairy-like  forms,  that  later  shall  gladden  our  Christ- 
mas table. 


'BUT  COME,   BOYS,  GET  AFTER  THOSE  BAGS  I" 


LEAFING  85 

But  how  they  gladden  and  cheer  the  October 
woods!  Summer  dead?  Hope  all  gone?  Life  van- 
ished away  ?  See  here,  under  this  big  pine,  a  whole 
garden  of  arbutus,  green  and  budded,  almost  ready 
to  bloom !  The  snows  shall  come  before  their  sweet 
eyes  open ;  but  open  they  will  at  the  very  first  touch 
of  spring.  We  will  gather  a  few,  and  let  them  wake 
up  in  saucers  of  clean  water  in  our  sunny  south 
windows. 

Leaves  for  the  pig,  and  arbutus  for  us !  We  make  a 
clean  sweep  down  the  hillside,  "jumping"  a  rabbit 
from  its  form,  or  bed,  under  a  brush-pile ;  discovering 
where  a  partridge  roosts  in  alow-spreading  hemlock; 
coming  upon  a  snail  cemetery,  in  a  hollow  hickory 
stump ;  turning  up  a  yellow-jacket's  nest,  built  two- 
thirds  underground ;  tracing  the  tunnel  of  a  bob- 
tailed  mouse  in  its  purposeless  windings  in  the  leaf 
mould;  digging  into  a  woodchuck's  — 

"  But  come,  boys,  get  after  those  bags !  It  is  leaves 
in  the  hay-rig  that  we  want,  not  woodchucks  at  the 
bottom  of  woodchuck  holes."  Two  small  boys  catch 
up  a  bag  and  hold  it  open,  while  the  third  boy  stuffs 
in  the  crackling  leaves.  Then  I  come  along  with  my 
big  feet  and  pack  the  leaves  in  tight,  and  onto  the 
rig  goes  the  bulging  thing ! 

Exciting  ?  If  you  can 't  believe  it  exciting,  hop 
up  on  the  load  and  let  us  jog  you  home.  Swish !  bang ! 
thump!  tip!  turn!  joggle!  jolt !—  Hold  on  to  your 
ribs!  Look  out  for  the  stump !  Is  n't  it  fun  to  go  leaf- 


• 


86  THE   FALL   OF   THE  YEAR 

ing?  Isn't  it  fun  to  do  anything  that  your  heart  does 
with  you — even  though  you  do  it  for  a  pig? 

Just  watch  the  pig  as  we  shake  out  the  bags  of 
leaves.  See  him  caper,  spin  on  his  toes,  shake  him- 
self, and  curl  his  tail.  That  curl  is  his  laugh.  We 
double  up  and  weep  when  we  laugh  hard ;  but  the 
pig  can't  weep,  and  he  can't  double  himself  up,  so 
he  doubles  up  his  tail.  There  is  where  his  laugh  comes 
off,  curling  and  kinking  in  little  spasms  of  pure  pig 

Boosh  !  Boosh  !  he  snorts,  and  darts  around  the 
pen  like  a  whirlwind,  scattering  the  leaves  in  forty 
ways,  to  stop  short  —  the  shortest  stop  !  —  and  fall 
to  rooting  for  acorns. 

He  was  once  a  long-tusked  boar  of  the  forest,  — 
this  snow-white,  sawed-off,  pug-faced  little  porker 
of  mine  —  ages  and  ages  ago.  But  he  still  remem- 
bers the  smell  of  the  forest  leaves ;  he  still  knows 
the  taste  of  the  acorn-mast ;  he  is  still  wild  pig  in  his 
soul. 

And  we  were  once  long-haired,  strong-limbed  sav- 
ages who  roamed  the  forest  hunting  him  —  ages  and 
ages  ago.  And  we,  too,  like  him,  remember  the  smell 
of  the  fallen  leaves,  and  the  taste  of  the  forest  fruits 
— and  of  pig,  roast  pig !  And  if  the  pig  in  his  heart 
is  still  a  wild  boar,  no  less  are  we,  at  times,  wild 
savages  in  our  hearts. 

Anyhow,  for  one  day  in  the  fall  I  want  to  go 
"  leafing."  I  want  to  give  my  pig  a  taste  of  acorns, 


LEAFING  87 

and  a  big  pile  of  leaves  to  dive  so  deep  into  that  he 
cannot  see  his  pen.  I  can  feel  the  joy  of  it  myself. 
No,  I  do  not  live  in  a  pen  ;  but  then,  I  might,  if  once 
in  a  while  I  did  not  go  leafing,  did  not  escape  now 
and  then  from  my  little  daily  round  into  the  wide, 
wild  woods  —  my  ancestral  home. 


CHAPTER  XII 


A    CHAPTER    OF   THINGS   TO    HEAR   THIS    FALL 

I 


^  OU  ought  to  hear  the  scream 
of  the  hen-hawks  circling 
high  in  the  air.  In  August  and 
September  and  late  into  October, 
if  you  listen  in  the  open  country, 
you  will  hear  their  piercing  whistle,  — 
shrill,  exultant  scream  comes  nearer 
to  describing  it,  —  as  they  sail  and  sail  a  mile  away 
in  the  sky. 

II 

You  ought  to  go  out  upon  some  mowing  hill  or 
field  of  stubble  and  hear  the  crickets,  then  into  the 
apple  orchard  and  hear  the  katydids,  then  into  the 
high  grass  and  bushes  along  the  fence  and  hear  the 
whole  stringed  chorus  of  green  grasshoppers,  katy- 


THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  FALL  89 

dids,  and  crickets.  You  have  heard  them  all  your 
life ;  but  the  trouble  is  that,  because  you  have  heard 
them  so  constantly  in  the  autumn,  and  because  one 
player  after  another  has  come  gradually  into  the  or- 
chestra, you  have  taken  them  as  part  of  the  natural 
course  of  things  and  have  never  really  heard  them  in- 
dividually, to  know  what  parts  they  play.  Now  any- 
body can  hear  a  lion  roar,  or  a  mule  bray,  or  a  loon 
laugh  his  wild  crazy  laugh  over  a  silent  mountain 
lake,  and  know  what  sound  it  is ;  but  who  can  hear  a 
cricket  out  of  doors,  or  a  grasshopper,  and  know 
which  is  which  ? 

Ill 

Did  you  ever  hear  a  loon  laugh  ?  You  ought  to. 
I  would  go  a  hundred  miles  to  hear  that  weird, 
meaningless,  melancholy,  maniacal  laughter  of  the 
loon,  or  great  northern  diver,  as  the  dusk  comes  down 
over  some  lonely 
lake  in  the  wil- 
derness of  the 
far  North.  From 
Maine  westward 
to  northern  Illi- 
nois you  may  listen  for  him  in 
early  autumn  ;  then,  when  the  mi- 
gration begins,  anywhere  south  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  You  may  never  hear  the  call  of  the  bull 
moose  in  the  northern  woods,  nor  the  howl  of  a  coy- 
ote on  the  western  praires,  nor  the  wild  cac,  cac,  cac 


90 


THE  FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 


of  the  soaring  eagles,  nor  the  husky  yap,  yap,  yap 
of  the  fox.  But,  if  you  do,  "make  a  note  of  it,"  as 
Captain  Cuttle  would  say  ;  for  the  tongues  that  utter 
this  wild  language  are  fast  ceasing  to  speak  to  us. 

IV 
One  strangely  sweet,  strangely  wild  voice  that  you 

still  may  hear  in  our  old  apple  orchards,  is  the  whim- 
pering, whinnying  voice  of  the 
little  screech  owl.  "  When  night 
comes,"  says  the  bird  book,  "  one 
may  hear  the  screech  owl's  trem- 
ulous, wailing  whistle.  It  is  a 
weird,  melancholy  call,  welcomed 
only  by  those  who  love  Nature's 
voice,  whatever  be  the  medium 
through  which  she  speaks."  Now 
listen  this  autumn  for  the  screech 
owl ;  listen  until  the  weird,  mel- 
ancholy call  is  welcomed  by  you, 
until  the  shiver  that  creeps  up 
your  back  turns  off  through  your 

hair,  as  you  hear  the  low  plaintive  voice  speaking  to 

you  out  of  the  hollow  darkness,  out  of  the  softness 

and  the  silence  of  night. 


You  ought  to  hear  the  brown  leaves  rustling  un- 
der your  feet. 


THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  FALL  91 

"  Heaped  in  the  hollows  of  the  grove,  the  autumn  leaves  lie  dead  ; 
They  rustle  to  the  eddying  gust,  and  to  the  rabbit's  tread." 

And  they  should  rustle  to  your  tread  as  well. 
Scuff  along  in  them  where  they  lie  in  deep  windrows 
by  the  side  of  the  road ;  and  hear  them  also,  as  the 
wind  gathers  them  into  a  whirling  flurry  and  sends 
them  rattling  over  -the  fields. 

VI 

You  ought  to  hear  the  cry  of  the  blue  jay  and  the 
caw  of  the  crow  in  the  autumn  woods. 

"  The  robin  and  the  wren  are  flown,  but  from  the  shrub  the  jay, 
And  from  the  wood-top  calls  the  crow  through  all  the  gloomy  day." 

Everybody  knows  those  lines  of  Bryant,  because 
everybody  has  heard  that  loud  scream  of  the  jay  in 
the  lonesome  woods,  and  the  caw,  caw,  caiv  of  the 
sentinel  crow  from  the  top  of  some 
tall  tree.  The  robins  may  not  be  all 
gone,  for  I  heard  and  saw  a  flock  of 
them  this  year  in  January;  but  they 
are  silent  now,  and  so  many  of  the 
birds  have  gone,  and  the  woods  have 
become  so  empty,  that  the  cries  of 
the  jay  and  the  crow  seem,  on  a 
gloomy  day,  to  be  the  only  sounds 
in  all  the  hollow  woods.  There  could 
hardly  be  an  autumn  for  me  if  I  did  not  hear  these 
two  voices  speaking  —  the  one  with  a  kind  of  warn- 
ing in  its  shrill,  half-plaintive  cry ;  the  other  with  a 


92 


THE   FALL   OF   THE   YEAR 


message  slow  and  solemn,  like  the  color  of  its  sable 

coat. 

VII 

You  ought  to  hear,  you  ought  to  catch,  I  should 
say,  a  good  round  scolding  from  the  red  squirrel  this 
fall.  A  red  squirrel  is  always  ready  to  scold  you  (and 

doubtless  you  are  al- 
ways in  need  of  his 
scolding),  but  he  is 
never  so  breathless  and 
emphatic  as  in  the  fall. 
"Whose  nuts  are  these 
in  the  woods  ? "  he 
asks,  as  you  come  up 
with  your  stick  and  bag.  "Who  found  this  tree 
first  ?  Come,  get  out  of  here !  Get  right  back  to  the 
city  and  eat  peanuts!  Come,  do  you  hear?  Get  out 
of  this ! " 

No,  don't  be  afraid;  he  won't  "eat  you  alive"  — 
though  I  think  he  might  if  he  were  big  enough.  He 
won't  blow  up,  either,  and  burst !  He  is  the  kind  of 
fire-cracker  that  you  call  a  "sizzler" — all  sputter 
and  no  explosion.  But  isn't  he  a  tempest!  Isn't  he 
a  whirlwind!  Isn't  he  a  red-coated  cyclone!  Let 
him  blow !  The  little  scamp,  he  steals  birds'  eggs  in 
the  summer,  they  say ;  but  there  are  none  now  for 
him  to  steal,  and  the  woods  are  very  empty.  We 
need  a  dash  of  him  on  these  autumn  days,  as  we 
need  a  dash  of  spice  in  our  food. 


THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  FALL  93 

In  the  far  western  mountains  he  has  a  cousin 
called  the  Douglas  squirrel ;  and  Mr.  John  Muir  calls 
him  "  the  brightest  of  all  the  squirrels  I  have  ever 
seen,  a  hot  spark  of  life,  making  every  tree  tingle  with 
his  prickly  toes,  a  condensed  nugget  of  fresh  moun- 
tain vigor  and  valor,  as  free  from  disease  as  a  sun- 
beam. How  he  scolds,  and  what  faces  he  makes,  all 
eyes,  teeth,  and  whiskers  !  " 

You  must  hear  him  this  fall  and  take  your  scold- 
ing, whether  you  deserve  it  or  not. 

VIII 

You  ought  to  hear  in  the  cedars,  pines,  or  spruces 
the  small  thin  cheep f  cheep,  cheep  of  the  chickadees 
or  the  kinglets.  You  must  take  a  quiet  day  on  the 
very  edge  of  winter  and,  in  some  sunny  dip  or  glade, 
hear  them  as  they  feed  and  flit 
about  you.  They  speak  in  a  lan- 
guage different  from  that 
of  the  crow  and  the  jay. 
This  tiny  talk  of  the  king- 
let is  all  friendly  and 
cheerful  and  personal 
and  confidential,  as  if 
you  were  one  of  the  party  and 
liked  spiders'  eggs  and  sunshine  and  did  n't  care  a 
snap  for  the  coming  winter  !  In  all  the  vast  gray 
out  of  doors  what  bits  of  winged  bravery,  what 
crumbs  of  feathered  courage,  they  seem!  One  is 


94  THE  FALL  OF   THE   YEAR 

hardly  ready  for  the  winter  until  he  has  heard  them 
in  the  cedars  and  has  been  assured  that  they  will 
stay,  no  matter  how  it  snows  and  blows. 

IX 

You  ought  to  hear,  some  quiet  day  or  moonlit 
night  in  October  or  November,  the  baying  of  the 
hounds  as  they  course  the  swamps  and  meadows  on 
the  heels  of  the  fox.  Strange  advice,  you  say  ?  No, 
not  strange.  It  is  a  wild,  fierce  cry  that  your  fathers 
heard,  and  their  fathers,  and  theirs  —  away  on  back 
to  the  cave  days,  when  life  was  hardly  anything  but 
the  hunt,  and  the  dogs  were  the  only  tame  animal, 
and  the  most  useful  possession,  man  had.  Their  deep 
bass  voices  have  echoed  through  all  the  wild  forests 
of  our  past,  and  stir  within  us  nowadays  wild  mem- 
ories that  are  good  for  us  again  to  feel.  Stand  still, 
as  the  baying  pack  comes  bringing  the  quarry  through 
the  forest  toward  you.  The  blood  will  leap  in  your 
veins,  as  the  ringing  cries  lift  and  fall  in  the  chorus 
that  echoes  back  from  every  hollow  and  hill  around  ; 
and  you  will  on  with  the  panting  pack  —  will  on  in 
the  fierce,  ^ld  exultation  of  the  chase  ;  for  instinct- 
ively we  are  hunters,  just  as  all  our  ancestors  were. 

No,  don't  be  afraid.  You  won't  catch  the  fox. 

X 

You  ought  to  hear  by  day  —  or  better,  by  night 
—  the  call  of  the  migrating  birds  as  they  pass  over, 


I) 

THINGS  TO  HEAR  THIS  FALL  95 

through  the  sky,  on  their  way  to  the  South.  East  or 
west,  on  the  Alantic  or  on  the  Pacific  shore,  or  in 
the  vast  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  you  may  hear  at 
night,  so  high  in  air  that  you  cannot  see  the  birds, 
these  voices  of  the  passing  migrants.  Chink,  chink, 
chink  !  will  drop  the  calls  of  the  bobolinks  —  fine, 
metallic,  starry  notes;  honk,  honk,  honk!  the  clarion 
cry  of  the  wild  geese  will  ring  along  the  aerial  way, 
as  they  shout  to  one  another  and  to  you,  listening 
far  below  them  on  the  steadfast  earth. 

Far  away,  yonder  in  the  starry  vault,  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  human  eyes,  a  multitude  of  feathered 
folk,  myriads  of  them,  are  streaming  over ;  armies 
of  them  winging  down  the  long  highway  of  the 
sky  from  the  frozen  North,  down  to  the  rice  fields 
of  the  Carolinas,  down  to  the  deep  tangled  jungles  of 
the  Amazon,  down  beyond  the  cold,  cruel  reach 
of  winter. 

Listen  as  they  hail  you  from  the  sky. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HONK,    HONK,    HONK! 

ONK,  honk,  honk  !  Out  of  the  silence  of 
the  November  night,  down  through  the 
depths  of  the  darkened  sky,  rang  the 
thrilling  call  of  the  passing  geese. 

Honk,  honk,  honk  !  I  was  out  of  bed  in 
__  _  an    instant ;    but   before   I    had 

^HPN    touched  the   floor,  there  was  a 

* •  -i^ ":  '"•      '     '' 

^—  patter  of  feet  in  the  boys'  room, 

^T  the  creak  of  windows  going  up, 
and  —  silence. 

Honk,  honk,  honk!  A.  mighty  flock  was  coming. 
The  stars  shone  clear  in  the  far  blue ;  the  trees  stood 
dark  on  the  rim  of  the  North ;  and  somewhere  be- 
tween the  trees  and  the  stars,  somewhere  along  a 
pathway  running  north  and  south,  close  up  against 
the  distant  sky,  the  wild  geese  were  winging. 

Honk,  honk,  honk  I  They  were  overhead.  Clear 
as  bugles,  round  and  mellow  as  falling  flute  notes, 
ordered  as  the  tramp  of  soldiers,  fell  the  honk,  honk, 
honk,  as  the  flock  in  single  line,  or  double  like  the 
letter  V,  swept  over  and  was  gone. 

We  had  not  seen  them.  Out  of  a  sound  sleep  they 
had  summoned  us,  out  of  beds  with  four  wooden 


HONK,   HONK,   HONK!  97 

legs  and  no  wings ;  and  we  had  heard  the  wild  sky- 
call,  had  heard  and  followed  through  our  open  win- 
dows, through  the  dark  of  the  night,  up  into  the  blue 
vault  under  the  light  of  the  stars. 

Round  and  dim  swung  the  earth  below  us,  hushed 
and  asleep  in  the  soft  arms  of  the  night.  Hill  and 
valley  lay  close  together,  farm-land  and  wood-land, 
all  wrapped  in  the  coverlet  of  the  dark.  City  and 
town,  like  watch  fires  along  the  edge  of  a  sleeping 
camp,  burned  bright  on  the  rivers  and  brighter  still 
on  the  ragged  line  of  shore  and  sea,  for  we  were  far 
away  near  the  stars.  The  mountains  rose  up,  but 
they  could  not  reach  us;  the  white  lakes  beckoned, 
but  they  could  not  call  us  down.  For  the  stars  were 
bright,  the  sky-coast  was  clear,  the  wind  in  our 
wings  was  the  keen,  wild  wind  of  the  North,  and  the 
call  that  we  heard — ah!  who  knows  the  call?  Yet, 
who  does  not  know  it  —  that  distant  haunting  call 
to  fly,  fly,  fly? 

I  found  myself  in  my  bed  the  next  morning.  I 
found  the  small  boys  in  their  beds.  I  found  the  big 
round  sun  in  the  sky  that  morning  and  not  a  star  in 
sight!  There  was  nothing  unusual  to  be  seen  up 
there,  nothing  mysterious  at  all.  But  there  was  some- 
thing unusual,  something  mysterious  to  be  seen  in 
the  four  small  faces  at  the  breakfast-table  that  morn- 
ing —  eyes  all  full  of  stars  and  deep  with  the  far, 
dark  depths  of  the  midnight  sky  into  which  they  had 
gazed  —  into  which  those  four  small  boys  had  flown ! 


98  THE   FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

We  had  often  heard  the  geese  go  over  before,  but 
never  such  a  flock  as  this,  never  such  wild  waking 
clangor,  so  clear,  so  far  away,  so  measured,  swift, 
and — gone! 

I  love  the  aound  of  the  ocean  surf,  the  roar  of  a 
winter  gale  in  the  leafless  woods,  the  sough  of  the 
moss-hung  cypress  in  the  dark  southern  swamps. 
But  no  other  voice  of  Nature  is  so  strangely,  deeply 
thrilling  to  me  as  the  honk,  honk,  honk  of  the  pass- 
ing geese. 

For  what  other  voice,  heard  nowadays,  of  beast 
or  bird  is  so  wild  and  free  and  far-resounding?  Heard 
in  the  solemn  silence  of  the  night,  ithe  notes  fall  as 
from  the  stars,  a  faint  and  far-off  sanitation,  like  the 
call  of  sentinels  down  the  picket  line  —  "  All's  well! 
All's  well!"  Heard  in  the  open  day,  when  you  can 
see  the  winged  wedge  splitting  through  the  dull  gray 
sky,  the  notes  seem  to  cleave  the  dun  clouds,  driven 
down  by  the  powerful  wing-beats  where  the  travel- 
ers are  passing  high  and  far  beyond  the  reach  of 
our  guns. 

The  sight  of  the  geese  going  over  in  the  day,  and 
the*  sound  of  their  trumpetings,  turn  the  whole  world 
of  cloud  and  sky  into  a  wilderness,  as  wild  and  pri- 
meval a  wilderness  as  that  distant  forest  of  the  far 
Northwest  where  the  howl  of  wolves  is  still  heard 
by  the  trappers.  Even  that  wilderness,  however,  is 
passing ;  and  perhaps  no  one  of  us  will  ever  hear  the 
howl  of  wolves  in  the  hollow  snow-filled  forests,  as 


HONK,   HONK,  HONK!  99 

many  of  our  parents  have  heard.  But  the  honk  of 
the  wild  geese  going  over  we  should  all  hear,  and 
our  children  should  hear ;  for  this  flock  of  wild  crea- 
tures we  have  in  our  hands  to  preserve. 

The  wild  geese  breed  in  the  low,  wet  marshes  of 
the  half-frozen  North,  where,  for  a  thousand  years 
to  come  they  will  not  interfere  with  the  needs  of 
man.  They  pass  over  our  northern  and  middle  states 
and  spend  the  winter  in  the  rivers,  marshes,  and 
lagoons  of  the  South,  where,  for  another  thousand 
years  to  come,  they  can  do  little,  if  any,  harm  to 
man,  but  rather  good. 

But  North  and  South,  and  all  along  their  journey 
back  and  forth,  they  are  shot  for  sport  and  food. 
For  the  wild  geese  cannot  make  this  thousand-mile 
flight  without  coming  down  to  rest  and  eat;  and 
wherever  that  descent  is  made,  there  is  pretty  sure 
to  be  a  man  with  a  gun  on  the  watch. 

Here,  close  to  my  home,  are  'four  ponds;  and 
around  the  sides  of  each  of  them  are  "goose  blinds" 
—  screens  made  of  cedar  and  pine  boughs  fixed  into 
the  shore,  behind  which  the  gunners  lie  in  wait. 
More  than  that,  out  upon  the  surface  of  the  pond 
are  geese  swimming,  but  tied  so  that  they  cannot 
escape  —  geese  that  have  been  raised  in  captivity 
and  placed  there  to  lure  the  flying  wild  flocks  down. 
Others,  known  as  "flyers,"  are  kept  within  the  blind 
to  be  let  loose  when  a  big  flock  is  seen  approaching 
—  to  fly  out  and  mingle  with  them  and  decoy  them 


100  THE  FALL  OF   THE  YEAR 

to  the  pond.  These  "  flyers  "  are  usually  young  birds 
and,  when  thrown  out  upon  their  wings,  naturally 
come  back,  bringing  the  wild  flock  with  them,  to 
their  fellows  fastened  in  the  pond. 

A  weary  flock  comes  winging  over,  hungry,  and 
looking  for  a  place  to  rest.  Instantly  the  captive 
geese  out  on  the  pond  see  them  and  set  up  a  loud 
honking.  The  flying  flock  hear  them  and  begin  to 
descend.  Then  they  see  one  (tossed  from  the  blind) 
coming  on  to  meet  them,  and  they  circle  lower  to 
the  pond,  only  to  fall  before  a  fury  of  shots  that 
pour  from  behind  the  blind. 

Those  of  the  flock  that  are  not  killed  rise  frightened 
and  bewildered  to  fly  to  the  opposite  shore,  where 
other  guns  riddle  them,  the  whole  flock  sometimes 
perishing  within  the  ring  of  fire ! 

Such  shooting  is  a  crime  because  it  is  unfair,  giv- 
ing the  creature  no  chance  to  exercise  his  native  wit 
and  caution.  The  fun  of  hunting,  as  of  any  sport,  is 
in  playing  the  game  —  the  danger,  the  exercise,  the 
pitting  of  limb  against  limb,  wit  against  wit,  patience 
against  patience ;  not  in  a  heap  of  carcasses,  the  dead 
and  bloody  weight  of  mere  meat ! 

If  the  hunter  would  only  play  fair  with  the  wild 
goose,  shoot  him  (the  wild  Canada  goose)  only  along 
the  North  Carolina  coast,  where  he  passes  the  winter, 
then  there  would  be  no  danger  of  the  noble  bird's 
becoming  extinct.  And  the  hunter  then  would  know 
what  real  sport  is,  and  what  a  long-headed,  far- 


HONK,  HONK,  HONK!       101 

sighted  goose  the  wild  goose  really  is  —  for  there  are 
few  birds  with  his  cunning  and  alertness. 

Along  the  Carolina  shore  the  geese  congregate  in 
vast  numbers ;  and  when  the  day  is  calm,  they  ride 
out  into  the  ocean  after  feeding,  so  far  off  shore 
that  no  hunter  could  approach  them.  At  night  they 
come  in  for  shelter  across  the  bars,  sailing  into  the 
safety  of  the  inlets  and  bays  for  a  place  to  sleep. 
If  the  wind  rises,  and  a  storm  blows  up,  then  they 
must  remain  in  the  pools  and  water-holes,  where  the 
hunter  has  a  chance  to  take  them.  Only  here,  where 
the  odds,  never  even,  are  not  all-  against  the  birds, 
should  the  wild  geese  be  hunted. 

With  the  coming  of  March  there  is  a  new  note  in 
the  clamor  of  the  flocks,  a  new  restlessness  in  their 
movements ;  and,  before  the  month  is  gone,  many 
mated  pairs  of  the  birds  have  flocked  together  and 
are  off  on  their  far  northern  journey  to  the  icy  lakes 
of  Newfoundland  and  the  wild,  bleak  marshes  of 
Labrador. 

Honk,  honk,  honk!  Shall  I  hear  them  going  over, 
—  going  northward, — as  I  have  heard  them  going 
southward  this  fall?  Winter  comes  down  in  their 
wake.  There  is  the  clang  of  the  cold  in  their  trumpet- 
ing, the  closing  of  iron  gates,  the  bolting  of  iron 
doors  for  the  long  boreal  night.  They  pass  and  leave 
the  forests  empty,  the  meadows  brown  and  sodden, 
the  rivers  silent,  the  bays  and  lakes  close  sealed. 
Spring  will  come  up  with  them  on  their  return ;  and 


102 


THE  FALL   OF  THE   YEAR 


their  honk,  honk,  honk  will  waken  the  frogs  from 
their  oozy  slumbers  and  stir  every  winter  sleeper  to 
the  very  circle  of  the  Pole. 

Honk,  honk,  honk!  Oh,  may  I  be  awake  to  hear 
you,  ye  strong-winged  travelers  on  the  sky,  when  ye 
go  over  northward,  calling  the  sleeping  earth  to 
waken,  calling  all  the  South  to  follow  you  through 
the  broken  ice-gates  of  the  North ! 

Honk,  honk,  honk !  The  wild  geese  are  passing 
—  southward ! 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS 


CHAPTER  I 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Go  yourself  frequently  into  the  fields  and  woods,  or  into  the  city 
parks,  or  along  the  water  front  —  anywhere  so  that  you  can  touch 
nature  directly,  and  look  and  listen  for  yourselves.  Don't  try  to  teach 
what  you  do  not  know,  and  there  is  nothing  in  this  book  that  you 
cannot  know,  for  the  lesson  to  be  taught  in  each  chapter  is  a  spiritual 
lesson,  not  a  number  of  bare  facts.  This  spiritual  lesson  you  must 
first  learn  before  you  can  teach  it  —  must  feel,  I  should  say  ;  and  a 
single  thoughtful  excursion  alone  into  the  autumn  fields  will  give  you 
possession  of  it.  And  what  is  the  lesson  in  this  chapter  ?  Just  this  : 
that  the  strong  growths  of  summer,  the  ripening  of  seeds  and  fruits, 
the  languid  lazy  spirit,  and  the  pensive  signs  of  coming  autumn  are 
all  the  manifold  preparations  of  nature  for  a  fresh  outburst  of  life 
with  the  coming  of  spring. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  1 

The  clock  of  the  year  strikes  one:  When,  in  the  daytime,  the  clock 
strikes  one,  the  hour  of  noon  is  past ;  the  afternoon  begins.  On 
the  21st  of  June  the  clock  of  the  year  strikes  twelve  —  noon  ! 
By  late  July  the  clock  strikes  one  —  the  noon  hour  is  past !  Sum- 
mer is  gone  ;  autumn  —  the  afternoon  of  the  year  —  begins. 
going  "  creepy-creep  "  :  In  the  quiet  of  some  July  day  in  fields  or 
woods,  listen  to  the  stirring  of  the  insects  and  other  small  wood 
creatures.  All  summer  long  they  are  going  about  their  business, 
but  in  the  midst  of  stronger  noises  we  are  almost  deaf  to  their 
world  of  little  sounds. 
PAGE  3 

begins  to  shift :  Why  is  the  oak's  shadow  likely  to  be  "  round  "  at 
noon  ?  What  causes  the  shadow  to  "  shift"  ;  or  move  ?  In  which 
direction  would  it  move  ? 


106  THE   FALL   OF   THE   YEAR 

falls  a  yellow  leaf  from  a  slender  birch  near  by  .  .  .  small  flock  of 
robins  from  a  pine  .  .  .  swallows  were  gathering  upon  the  telegraph 
wires :  Next  summer,  note  the  exact  date  on  which  you  first  see 
signs  of  autumn  —  the  first  falling  of  the  leaves,  the  first  gather- 
ing of  birds  for  their  southern  trip.  Most  of  the  migrating  birds 
go  in  flocks  for  the  sake  of  companionship  and  protection. 
chewink  (named  from  his  call,  che-wink' ;  accent  on  second,  not 
on  first,  syllable,  as  in  some  dictionaries)  or  ground  robin,  or 
towhee  or  joree  ;  one  of  the  finch  family.  You  will  know  him  by 
his  saying  "chewink"  aiid  by  his  vigorous  scratching  among  the 
dead  leaves,  and  by  his  red-brown  body  and  black  head  and  neck. 
vireo  (vir'-e-o)  :  the  red-eyed  vireo,  the  commonest  of  the  vireo 
family  ;  often  called  "  Preacher  "  ;  builds  the  little  hanging  nest 
from  a  small  fork  on  a  bush  or  tree  so  low  often  that  you  can 
look  into  it. 

fiery  notes  of  the  scarlet  tanager  (tan'-a-jer)  :  His  notes  are  loud 
and  strong,  and  he  is  dressed  in  fiery  red  clothes  and  sings  on 
the  fieriest  of  July  days. 
PAGE  4 

resonant  song  of  the  indigo  bunting:  or  indigo-bird,  one  of  the  finch 
family.  He  sings  from  the  very  tip  of  a  tree  as  if  to  get  up  close 
under  the  dome  of  the  sky.  Indeed,  his  notes  seem  to  strike 
against  it  and  ring  down  to  us  ;  for  there  is  a  peculiar  ringing 
quality  to  them,  as  if  he  were  singing  to  you  from  inside  a  great 
copper  kettle. 

scarlet  tanager  by  some  accident :  The  tanager  arrives  among  the 
last  of  the  birds  in  the  spring,  and  builds  late  ;  but,  if  you  find  a 
nest  in  July  or  August,  it  is  pretty  certain  to  be  a  second  nest, 
the  first  having  been  destroyed  somehow  —  a  too  frequent  occur- 
rence with  all  birds. 

half-fledged  cuckoos :  The  cuckoo  also  is  a  very  late  builder.  I 
have  more  than  once  found  its  eggs  in  July. 

red  wood-lily :  Do  you  know  the  wood-lily,  or  the  "  wild  orange- 
red  lily  "  as  some  call  it  (Lilium  philadelphicuni)  ?  It  is  found 
from  New  England  to  North  Carolina  and  west  to  Missouri,  but 
only  on  hot,  dry,  sandy  ground,  whereas  the  turk's-cap  and  the 
wild  yellow  lily  are  found  only  where  the  ground  is  rich  and  moist. 
low  mouldy  moss :  Bring  to  school  a  flake,  as  large  as  your  hand, 
of  the  kind  of  lichen  you  think  this  may  be.  Some  call  it  "  rein- 
deer moss." 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  107 

sweet-fern  :  Put  a  handful  of  sweet-fern  (Myrica  asplenifolia)  in 
your  pocket,  a  leaf  or  two  in  your  book  ;  and  whenever  you  pass 
it  in  the  fields,  pull  it  through  your  fingers  for  the  odor.  Sweet 
gale  and  bayberry  are  its  two  sweet  relatives. 

PAGE  5 

milkweed,  boneset,  peppermint,  turtle-head,  joe-pye-weed,  jewel-weed, 
smartweed,  and  budding  goldenrod :  Go  down  to  the  nearest  mead- 
ow stream  and  gather  for  school  as  many  of  these  flowers  as  you 
can  find.  Examine  their  seeds. 

toind  is  a  sower  going  forth  to  sow:  Besides  the  winds  what  other 
seed-scatterers  do  you  know  ?  They  are  many  and  very  interest- 
ing. 

PAGE  6 

"  Over  the  fields  where  the  daisies  grow.  .  .  ."  From  "  Thistle- 
down "  in  a  volume  of  poems  called  "  Summer-Fallow,"  by 
Charles  Buxton  Going. 

seed-souls  of  thistles  and  daisies  and  fall  dandelions  seeking  new 
bodies  for  themselves  in  the  warm  soil  of  Mother  Earth :  On  your 
country  walks,  watch  to  see  where  such  seeds  have  been  caught, 
or  have  fallen.  They  will  be  washed  down  into  the  earth  by  rain 
and  snow.  If  you  can  mark  the  place,  go  again  next  spring  to  see 
for  yourself  if  they  have  risen  in  "  new  bodies  "  from  the  earth. 
sweet  pepper-bush :  The  sweet  pepper-bush  is  also  called  white 
alder  and  clethra. 

chickadees :  Stand  stock-still  upon  meeting  a  flock  of  chickadees 
and  see  how  curious  they  become  to  know  you.  You  may  know 
the  chickadee  by  its  tiny  size,  its  gray  coat,  black  cap  and  throat, 
its  saying  "  chick-a-dee,"  and  its  plaintive  call  of  "  pbxebe  "  in  three 
distinct  syllables. 

PAGE  7 

clock  strikes  twelve :  As  we  have  thought  of  midsummer  as  the 
hour  from  twelve  to  one  in  the  day,  so  the  dead  of  winter  seems 
by  comparison  the  twelve  o'clock  of  midnight. 
shimmering  of  the  spiders'  silky  balloons  :  It  is  the  curious  habit 
of  many  of  the  spiders  to  travel,  especially  in  the  fall,  by  throw- 
ing skeins  of  silky  web  into  the  air,  which  the  breezes  catch 
and  carry  up,  while  the  spiders,  like  balloonists,  hang  in  their 
web  ropes  below  and  sail  away. 


108  THE   FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

CHAPTER  II 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

I  have  chosen  the  fox  in  this  chapter  to  illustrate  the  very  inter- 
esting and  striking  fact  that  wild  animals,  birds  and  beasts,  thrive  in 
the  neighborhood  of  man  if  given  the  least  protection  ;  for  if  the  fox 
holds  his  own  (as  surely  he  does)  in  the  very  gates  of  one  of  the  larg- 
est cities  in  the  United  States,  how  easy  it  should  be  for  us  to  pre- 
serve for  generations  yet  the  birds  and  smaller  animals  !  I  might 
have  written  a  very  earnest  chapter  on  the  need  for  every  pupil's 
joining  the  Audubon  Society  and  the  Animal  Rescue  League  ;  but 
young  pupils,  no  less  than  their  elders,  hate  to  be  preached  to.  So  I 
have  recounted  a  series  of  short  narratives,  trusting  to  the  suggestions 
of  the  chapter,  and  to  the  quiet  comment  of  the  teacher  to  do  the 
good  work.  Every  pupil  a  protector  of  wild  life  is  the  moral. 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 

There  are  two  species  of  foxes  in  the  eastern  states  —  the  gray 
fox,  common  from  New  Jersey  southward,  and  the  larger  red  fox,  so 
frequent  here  in  New  England  and  northward,  popularly  known  as 
Reynard.  Far  up  under  the  Arctic  circle  lives  the  little  white  or  Arc- 
tic fox,  so  valuable  for  its  fur  ;  and  in  California  still  another  species 
known  as  the  coast  fox.  The  so-called  silver  or  blue,  or  black,  or 
cross  fox,  is  only  the  red  fox  with  a  blackish  or  bluish  coat. 
PAGE  9 

Mullein  Hill :  the  name  of  the  author's  country  home  in  Hingham, 
Massachusetts.  The  house  is  built  on  the  top  of  a  wooded  ridge 
looking  down  upon  the  tops  of  the  orchard  trees  and  away  over 
miles  of  meadow  and  woodland  to  the  Blue  Hills,  and  at  night 
to  the  lights  that  flash  in  Boston  Harbor.  Years  before  the  house 
was  built  the  ridge  was  known  as  Mullein  Hill  because  of  the 
number  and  size  of  the  mulleins  (  Verbascum  Thapsus)  that  grew 
upon  its  sides  and  top. 
PAGE  10 

mowing-field :  a  New  England  term  for  a  field  kept  permanently 
in  grass  for  hay. 


NOTES   AND   SUGGESTIONS  109 

PAGE  11 

grubby  acres :  referring  to  the  grubs  of  various  beetles  found  in 

the  soil  and  under  the  leaves  of  its  woodland. 

BB:  the  name  of  shot  about  the  size  of  sweet  pea  seed. 

PAGE  12 

Pigeon  Henny's  coop :  a  pet  name  for  one  of  the  hens  that  looked 
very  much  like  a  pigeon. 

shells  :  loaded  cartridges  used  in  a  breech-loading  gun. 
bead  drew  dead :  when  the  little  metal  ball  on  the  end  of  the  gun- 
barrel,  used  to  aim  by,  showed  that  the  gun  was  pointing  directly 
at  the  fox. 

PAGE  16 

the  mind  in  the  wild  animal  world :  how  the  animals  may  really 
feel  when  being  chased,  namely,  not  frightened  to  death,  as  we 
commonly  think,  but  perhaps  cool  and  collected,  taking  the  chase 
as  a  matter  of  course,  even  enjoying  it. 

PAGE  17 

The  Chase :  The  sound  of  the  hunting  is  likened  to  a  chorus  of 
singing  voices;  the  changing  sounds,  as  when  the  pack  emerges 
from  thick  woods  into  open  meadow,  being  likened  to  the  vari- 
ous measures  of  the  musical  score;  the  whole  musical  composition 
or  chorus  being  called  The  Chase. 

PAGE  18 

dead  heat :  a  race  between  two  or  more  horses  or  boats  where  two 
of  the  racers  come  out  even,  neither  winning. 

PAGE  19 

Flood :  Why  spelled  with  a  capital  ?  What  flood  is  meant  ? 

PAGE  20 

hard-pressed  fox  had  narrowly  won  his  way :  In  spite  of  the  author's 
attempt  to  shoot  the  fox  that  was  stealing  his  chickens  do  you  think 
the  author  would  be  glad  if  there  were  no  foxes  in  his  woods  ? 
How  do  they  add  interest  to  his  out  of  doors  ?  What  other  things 
besides  chickens  do  they  eat  ?  Might  it  not  be  that  their  destruc- 
tion of  woodchucks  (for  they  eat  woodchucks)  and  mice  and  musk- 
rats  quite  balances  their  killing  of  poultry  ?  (The  author  thinks 
so.) 


110  THE  FALL   OF  THE  YEAR 

CHAPTER  III 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

The  thought  in  this  chapter  is  evident,  namely,  that  love  for  the 
out  of  doors  is  dependent  upon  knowledge  of  the  out  of  doors.  The 
more  we  know  and  the  better  we  understand,  the  more  perfect  and 
marvelous  nature  seems  and  the  more  lovely.  The  toad  fish  looks 
loathly,  but  upon  closer  study  he  becomes  very  interesting,  even  ad- 
mirable —  one  of  the  very  foundations  of  real  love.  So,  as  a  teacher 
and  as  a  lover  of  nature,  be  careful  never  to  use  the  words  "  ugly  " 
or  "  nasty  "  or  "  loathly  ";  never  shrink  from  a  toad;  never  make  a 
wry  face  at  a  worm;  never  show  that  you  are  having  a  nervous  fit  at 
a  snake;  for  it  all  argues  a  lack  of  knowledge  and  understanding. 
All  life,  from  Man  to  the  Amoeba,  is  one  long  series  of  links  in  a 
golden  chain,  one  succession  of  wonderful  life-histories,  each  vastly 
important,  all  making  up  the  divinely  beautiful  world  of  life  which 
our  lives  crown,  but  of  which  we  are  only  a  part,  and,  perhaps,  no 
more  important  a  part  than  the  toadfish. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

The  toadfish  of  this  story  is  Batrachus  tau,  sometimes  called  oyster- 
fish  or  sapo.  The  fishing-frog  or  angler  is  by  some  called  toadfish,  as 
is  also  the  swell-fish  or  common  puffer  of  the  Atlantic  Coast. 
PAGE  21 

Buzzards  Bay :  Where  is  Buzzards  Bay  ?  Do  you  know  Whittier's 
beautiful  poem,  The  Prayer  of  Agassiz,  which  begins  :  — 

"  On  the  isle  of  Penikese 
Ringed  about  by  sapphire  seas." 

Where  is  Penikese  ?  What  waters  are  those  "  sapphire  seas,"  and 
what  was  Agassiz  doing  there  ? 
PAGE  23 

Davy  Jones :  Who  is  Davy  Jones  ?  Look  him  up  under  Jones, 
Davy,  in  your  dictionary  of  Proper  Names.  Get  into  the  "  looking 
up  "  habit.  Never  let  anything  in  your  reading,  that  you  do  not 
understand,  go  unlocked  up. 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  111 

Old  Man  of  the  Sea:  Look  him  up  too.  Are  he  and  Davy  Jones 
any  relation  ? 

It  was  really  a  fish  :  What  names  do  you  think  of  that  might  fit 
this  fish  ? 

PAGE  24 

coarsely  marbled  with  a  darker  hue :  What  is  the  meaning  of  marbled  f 

PAGE  25 

covered  with  water :  The  author  means  that  the  rock  is  not  always 
covered  with  water,  not  the  hole  under  the  rock.  Of  course  the 
hole  is  always  built  so  that  it  is  full  of  water,  else  the  fish  would 
perish  at  low  tide. 

PAGE  27 

love  the  out  of  doors  with  all  your  mind :  Do  you  know  what  is 
meant  by  loving  the  out  of  doors  with  your  mind  ?  Just  this  : 
that  while  you  feel  (with  your  heart)  the  beauty  of  a  star,  at  the 
same  time  you  know  (with  your  mind)  that  that  particular  star,  let 
us  say,  is  the  Pole  Star,  the  guide  to  the  sailors  on  the  seas  ;  that 
it  is  also  only  one  of  a  vast  multitude  of  stars  each  one  of  which 
has  its  place  in  the  heavens,  its  circuit  or  path  through  the  skies, 
its  part  in  the  whole  orderly  universe  —  a  thought  so  vast  and 
wonderful  that  we  cannot  comprehend  it.  All  this  it  means  to  love 
with  our  minds.  Without  minds  a  star  to  us  is  only  a  point  of 
light,  as  to  Peter  Bell 

"  A  primrose  by  the  river's  brim 
A  yellow  primrose  was  to  him 
And  it  was  nothing  more." 

Does  the  toadfish  become  anything  more  than  a  mere  toadfish  in 
a  shoe  before  the  end  of  the  chapter  ? 
PAGE  28 

in  the  toadjish's  shoe :  What  does  the  author  mean  by  asking  you 
to  put  yourself  in  the  toadfish's  shoe  ?  Only  this  :  to  try,  even 
with  the  humblest  of  creatures,  to  share  sympathetically  their 
lives  with  them.  The  best  way  to  do  this  with  man  as  well  as  with 
toadfish  is  to  learn  about  their  lives. 


112  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 


CHAPTER  IV 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

There  are  several  practical  uses  to  which  you  can  put  this  chapter, 
and  the  similar  chapters,  vn  and  xn  :  they  can  be  made  the  pur- 
pose for  field  excursions  with  the  class.  Such  excursions  might  be 
quite  impossible  for  many  a  teacher  in  school  hours  ;  and  we  know 
how  the  exacting  duties  overcrowd  the  after-school  hours  ;  but  one 
field  excursion  each  season  of  the  year,  no  matter  how  precious  your 
time,  would  do  more  for  you  and  your  class  than  many  books  about 
nature  read  inside  your  four  plastered  walls.  Better  the  books  than 
nothing  ;  but  take  the  book  and  go  with  your  pupils  into  the  real  out 
of  doors. 

Again,  you  can  make  these  chapters  a  kind  of  nature  test,  asking 
each  pupil  to  try  to  see  each  of  the  things  suggested  here  ;  or,  if 
these  do  not  chance  to  be  the  sights  characteristic  of  the  autumn  in 
your  region,  then  such  sights  as  are  characteristic.  So  the  chapter 
can  serve  as  a  kind  of  field  guide  to  the  pupil,  and  a  kind  of  test  of 
his  knowledge  of  nature. 

Again,  you  can  make  each  item  mentioned  here  the  subject  for  a 
short  composition  direct  from  the  pupil's  experience  —  the  only  kind 
of  subject  for  him  to  write  upon.  Or  make  each  item  (say,  No.  iv, 
the  Ballooning  Spiders)  the  beginning  for  a  short  course  of  study  or 
collateral  reading  for  the  individual  pupil  particularly  interested  in 
spiders  ! 

CHAPTER  V 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

The  real  point  of  this  story  (but  first  of  all  it  is  a  story  and  should 
not  be  spoiled  with  any  moral)  is  the  thought  in  the  lines  :  — 

"  There  were  thousands  of  persons  who  could  have  gold  eggs  if 
they  cared.  But  eagles'  eggs  !  Money  could  not  buy  such  a  sight  as 
this."  Which  means,  that  the  simple  joys  of  the  out  of  doors,  and 
the  possession  of  youth  and  health,  are  better  than  any  joys  that 
money  can  create,  and  more  precious  possessions  than  all  the  money 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  113 

in  the  world  can  buy.  One  can  get  all  the  thrilling  sensations  of 
height  by  standing  up  in  a  quaking  eagle's  nest  sixty  feet  from  the 
ground,  that  one  can  possibly  get  from  the  top  of  the  Eiffel  Tower 
or  on  the  peak  of  Mount  Washington,  or  from  a  flying-machine 
among  the  clouds.  And  then  who  among  the  rich  of  the  world  ever 
saw  eagles'  eggs  in  a  nest,  or  had  eagles  dig  him  with  their  talons  ? 
To  be  alive  to  all  the  wonder  of  the  life,  to  all  the  beauty  of  the 
world  about  us,  is  the  very  secret  of  living.  An  eagle's  nest  to  climb 
into  is  as  good  as  a  flying-machine. 

Take  occasion,  too,  at  the  end  of  the  story  to  say  how  much  better, 
how  much  more  interesting,  an  act  it  was  to  leave  the  eggs  to  hatch 
than  to  rob  the  nest  and  thus  destroy  two  young  eagles.  Some  years 
later,  for  instance,  two  young  eagles  were  taken  from  a  neighboring 
nest  and  were  sent  to  the  Zoological  Gardens  at  Philadelphia,  where 
they  may  still  be  living  for  thousands  of  visitors  each  year  to  see. 
Who  knows  but  that  one  of  the  parents  of  these  two  captive  birds 
may  have  been  in  the  eggs  laid  back  by  the  boy  in  that  nest  ? 


.FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  36 

Maurice  River  Cove :  Where  is  Maurice  River  Cove  ?  What  is 
the  Cove  famous  for  ? 

great  eagle's  nest:  Look  up  the  habits  of  the  bald  eagle  in  some 
natural  history.  Is  he  a  very  great  enemy  to  man  ?  If  a  pair  of 
the  noble  birds  lived  in  your  neighborhood  would  you  want  their 
nest  destroyed  and  the  birds  shot?  Do  you  know  the  story  of 
"  Old  Abe  "  ?  Look  that  up  also. 
PAGE  37 

scream  of  a  wild  cat :  The  wild  cat  is  still  to  be  found  throughout 
the  United  States  wherever  the  country  is  very  wild  and  wooded. 
Its  cry  or  scream  is  an  indescribable  thrill  that  shoots  cold  all 
over  you,  freezing  fast  in  the  roots  of  your  hair. 
mud-hens :  The  mud-hen  or  American  coot,  a  dark  bluish  slate- 
colored  bird  of  the  marshes  about  the  size  of  a  large  bantam, 
with  an  ivory-white  bill  and  peculiar  lobed  toes,  instead  of  webbed 
like  a  duck's. 

eyrie :  What  does  the  word  mean  ?   Are  there  any  other  ways  of 
spelling  it  ? 


114  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

PAGE  38 

size  of  a  small  haystack :  This  is  no  exaggeration.  From  one  nest 
of  a  fish  hawk  (and  this  nest  was  probably  built  first  by  a  fish 
hawk)  that  blew  down  from  the  top  of  an  old  house  chimney  in  the 
Maurice  River  Marshes,  the  author  knew  six  one-horse  cartloads 
of  loose  sticks  to  be  taken. 

PAGE  40 

such  a  sight  as  this :  Have  you  ever  seen  a  sunset  more  gorgeous 
than  any  artist  could  paint  and  any  rich  man  could  buy  ?  Ever 
had  a  smell  of  trailing  arbutus  that  no  perfumer  could  equal,  that 
all  the  money  in  the  world  could  not  create  ?  Old  Midas  had  a 
golden  touch  and  turned  his  daughter  into  gold.  Was  he  not  more 
than  willing  to  be  the  poorest  man  in  his  kingdom  if  only  he 
might  be  rid  of  the  fatal  touch,  be  a  natural  man  again  and  have 
his  loving  little  daughter  a  natural  child  again  ?  To  be  your  nat- 
ural selves,  and  to  enjoy  your  beautiful  natural  world  is  better 
than  to  be  anything  else,  or  to  have  anything  else,  in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  VI 

TO   THE  TEACHER 

We  hear  so  much  of  the  drudgery  of  farm  life,  of  its  dreariness,  and 
meagre  living  that  this  chapter,  aside  from  its  picture  of  cheer  and 
plenty,  should  be  made  the  text  for  a  good  deal  of  comment  upon  the 
many  other  phases  of  farm  life  that  make  for  the  fullest  kind  of  exist- 
ence ;  namely,  the  independence  of  the  farmer;  the  vast  and  interesting 
variety  of  his  work  ;  his  personal  contact  with  domestic  animals,  his 
fruit-trees,  garden,  and  fields  of  grain;  his  intimate  acquaintance  with 
the  weather  ;  his  great  resourcefulness  in  meeting  insect  plagues, 
blights,  and  droughts  ;  his  out-of-door  life  that  makes  him  strong 
and  long-lived,  etc.,  etc. 

If  you  are  a  country  teacher  it  is  one  of  your  great  missions  to 
show  the  boys  that  they  should  stay  upon  the  farm,  or  rather  that 
the  farm  is  a  good  place  to  stay  on  for  life  ;  if  you  are  a  city  teacher 
it  should  be  your  mission  to  head  many  a  boy  country  ward  for  life 
with  the  understanding  that  it  requires  more  sound  sense  and  re- 
sourcefulness to  make  a  successful  farmer  than  it  does  to  make  a 
bank  president. 


NOTES   AND  SUGGESTIONS  115 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  46 

end  of  the  outdoors :  The  fall  plowing,  even  the  digging  of  the 
ditches  —  all  the  work  in  the  soil  is  about  over  by  Thanksgiving 
when  the  ground  begins  to  freeze. 

PAGE  47 

crib-house :  Where  the  writer  lived  as  a  boy  the  corn  was  husked 
and  left  in  the  ear  and  stored  in  long,  narrow  houses  built  of  bev- 
eled slats  spaced  about  half  an  inch  apart  to  allow  the  wind  free 
play,  but  like  the  thin  slats  of  a  shutter  so  arranged  that  the  rain 
ran  down  and,  except  in  a  driving  wind,  did  not  wet  the  grain. 
"spring-house":  Spring- houses  took  the  place  of  modern  ice- 
chests,  being  little  cupboard-like  houses  well  ventilated  and 
screened,  built  near  the  farmhouse  and  usually  over  a  spring  of 
water  that  kept  the  milk  and  other  contents  cool. 
battened:  Is  this  a  "  land  "  term  or  a  "  sea  "  term  ?  What  does  it 
mean  ?  Look  it  up  and  report. 

the  swallows :  These  were  the  barn  swallows  —  the  beautiful  swal- 
lows with   the  long,  finely-forked  tail.  You  will   always  know 
them  on  the  wing  by  the  brown  breast  andyme  forked  tail. 
worm-fence:  A  worm-fence  is  built  of  rails  laid  one  on  top  of  the 
other,  running  zigzag,  each  corner  held  together  by  two  upright 
stakes,  set  in  the  ground  and  crossed  just  above  the  next-to-the- 
top  rail.  The  top  rail  is  laid  in  the  crotch  of  the  two  stakes. 
turn-o'-lane :  name  of  a  very  excellent  old-fashioned  apple  that 
got  its  name  from  the  fact  that  the  original  tree  of  the  kind  grew 
at  a  turn  of  the  lane  —  the  writer  does  not  know  whose  lane. 

PAGE  48 

double-hived :  It  is  customary  to  cover  beehives  with  newspapers, 
then  slip  an  outside  box  down  over  papers  and  all  to  keep  the 
swarm  from  the  cutting  cold  winds  of  winter.  Bees  are  frequently 
brought  into  the  cellar  for  the  winter  in  northern  latitudes. 
put  on  an  extra  coat,  and  turned  their  collars  up  about  their  ears: 
What  does  the  writer  mean  ? 

changed  their  roost  from  the  ridge-pole :  Turkeys  roost  high  ;  but 
*the  ridge-pole  of  the  crib-house  used  to  be  too  cold  in  the  dead  of 
winter,  so  they  would  change  to  the  more  protected  apple-tree, 
still  roosting  high,  however. 


116  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

pearmain :  name  of  a  "  summer  "  apple  in  New  Jersey  ;~of  a  winter 
apple  in  this  section  of  Massachusetts. 
garden  of  box :  the  box  bush. 

bleeding-hearts :  an  old-fashioned  flower  ;  a  low  shrub  with  pend- 
ent blossoms  shaped  like  a  heart. 
creeper :  the  Virginia  creeper,  or  woodbine. 

PAGE  49 

"  template  "  stove :  from  template  or  templet,  a  strip  of  sheet  iron 
used  in  boiler-making.  A  simple  long  stove  made  of  a  single 
piece  of  sheet  iron,  bent  like  an  inverted  U,  and  riveted  to  a  cast 
iron  bottom.  It  had  a  single  door  in  the  front ;  aud  burnt  pieces 
of  wood  about  two  feet  long.  Often  called  "  tenplate  "  stove. 

PAGE  50 

seven  of  us  alone:  seven  brothers  and  sisters  in  the  writer's  family. 
fiats :  Describe  the  outside  appearance  of  a  city  "  flat,"  and  also 
the  inside  if  you  have  ever  been  in  a  flat.  Is  it  like  a  farmhouse  ? 
kitchenette:  What  kind  of  a  kitchen  is  a  kitchenette  t 
neither  a  farm  nor  a  city  home  :  By  which  the  writer  means  a  farm 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  land  cultivated  for  a  living.  His  is  a  home 
only,  with  several  acres  around  it,  largely  in  woods  and  grass. 

PAGE  51 

"  Bucksy  "  :  the  invented  name  of  a  little  Indian  hero  about  whom 
the  writer  tells  stories  to  his  little  boys. 

CHAPTER  VII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Suggestions  as  to  the  practical  uses  to  which  this  chapter  can  be 
put  may  be  gathered  from  the  notes  to  chapter  iv  and  chapter  XII, 
each  of  which  is  similar  to  this  one. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

This  chapter  and  the  next  (chapter  ix)  should  be  taken  together 
as  a  single  study  of  the  provision  of  nature  against  the  severity  of 
winter's  cold,  chapter  vm  being  a  detailed  account  of  one  creature's 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  117 

preparations,  while  chapter  ix  follows,  showing  how  the  foresight 
and  care  obtain  even  among  the  plants  and  trees.  The  two  chapters 
together  should  give  the  pupils  a  glad  thought  for  winter,  should 
utterly  change  their  conventional  language  and  •  feeling  for  it  as  a 
time  of  death.  And  instead  of  lamenting  the  season  as  a  necessary 
evil,  you  must  show  them  that  it  is  to  be  welcomed  as  a  period  of  sleep 
for  nature  from  which  she  will  waken  in  all  the  freshness  of  a  spring- 
time such  as  is  nowhere  to  be  had  outside  of  the  temperate  zone. 
"  It  is  not  always  May,"  wails  the  poet  ;  but  ask  them  :  Who  wants 
it  always  May  ?  We  want  the  variety,  the  contrasts  of  our  four 
seasons,  and  as  to  winter,  let  the  North  Wind  blow  at  will,  redden 
our  cheeks,  quicken  our  step,  put  purpose  into  our  wills  and  —  it 
won't  starve  us ;  for  we,  too,  like  the  muskrat,  are  provided  for. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

If  there  is  a  muskrat  house  or  village  of  houses  in  your  neighbor- 
hood, report  to  the  class,  or  better,  take  teacher  and  class,  as  soon  as 
freezing  weather  conies,  to  see  it.  Go  out  yourselves  and  try  to  see 
the  muskrats  plastering  their  walls  on  one  of  the  bright  October 
nights. 
PAGE  63 

muskrats  combine :  The  author  has  frequently  found  as  many  as 

six  rats  in  a  single  house  ;  but  whether  all  of  these  helped  in  the 

building  or  not,  he  is  unable  to  say. 

winter  house :  If  the  house  is  undisturbed  (as  when  situated  out 

in  a  stumpy  pond)  it  will  stand  for  years,  the  rats  dwelling  in  it 

the  year  around. 
PAGE  64 

pick  and  shovel :  What  is  meant  by  a  fox's  "  pick  and  shovel  "  ? 

Lupton's  Pond :  the  name  of  a  little  wood-walled  pond  that  the 

author  haunted  as  a  boy. 

'•  The  best-laid  schemes  o'  mice  and  men 
Gang  aft  agley." 

Learn  this  poem  ("  To  A  Mouse  ")  by  heart.  Burns  is  the  author. 
PAGE  65 

very  much  alike  :  Name  some  other  respects  in  whicK  animals  and 
men  are  alike  in  their  lives.  What  famous  line  in  the  poem  just 
quoted  is  it  that  makes  men  and  mice  very  closely  related  ? 


118  THE   FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

bottom  of  the  house:  Down  in  the  very  foundation  walls  of  the 
muskrat's  house  are  two  runways  or  "  doors "  that  open  under 
water  and  so  far  under  that  they  rarely  if  ever  freeze.  See  picture 
of  such  a  house  with  its  door  in  the  author's  "  Wild  Life  Near 
Home,"  page  174. 
PAGE  66 

tepee :  What  is  a  tepee  ? 

juicy  and  pink  and  tender :  The  muskrats  eat  grass  stems  and 
roots,  so  that  under  the  water  near  the  lodge  you  will  often  find 
in  winter  little  stacks  of  these  tender  pink  stems  and  roots  ready 
for  eating  —  much  as  the  beaver  stores  up  sticks  of  tender  bark 
under  the  water  near  his  lodge  for  food  when  the  ice  forms  over- 
head. 
Winter  is  coming :  Are  you  glad  or  sorry  ?  Are  you  ready  ? 


CHAPTER  IX 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Let  the  pupils  continue  this  list  of  examples  of  winter  preparations 
by  watching  and  observing  for  themselves.  Every  field,  every  tree, 
every  roadside,  will  reveal  the  work  done  or  going  on  under  their 
eyes.  Without  preaching  you  may  draw  many  an  interesting  and 
telling  parallel  with  their  own  preparation  —  in  school  for  instance. 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 
PAGE  67 

"  The  north  wind  doth  blow, 
And  we  shall  have  snow, 
And  what  will  the  Robin  do  then, 
Poor  thing?" 

Where  does  the  verse  come  from  ?  Mother  Goose  ?  Yes,  but  who 
was  she  ? 

Chipmunk:  Our  little  striped  ground  squirrel,  interesting  because 
he  has  cheek-pouches  and  thus  forms  a  link  between  the  arboreal 
squirrels  (gray  squirrels,  etc.)  and  the  ground  squirrels  or  sper- 
mophiles,  of  which  the  beautiful  little  thirteen-lined  squirrel  of 
the  prairies  is  an  example. 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  119 

Whitefoot,  the  wood  mouse :  The  white-footed  or  wood  mouse  or  deer 
mouse. 

PAGE  68 

Not  so  much  as  a  bug  or  a  single  beetle's  egg  has  he  stored :  Why 
not,  seeing  that  these  are  his  food  ? 

a  piece  of  suet  for  him  on  a  certain  lilac  bush :  Whose  bush  might 
it  be  ?  Is  there  a  piece  on  yours  ? 

upon  the  telegraph-wires  were  the  swallows —  the  first  sign  that  the 
getting  ready  for  winter  has  begun  :  What  kind  or  kinds  of  swal- 
lows ?  Have  you  any  earlier  sign  ? 

PACK  69 

the  few  creatures  that  find  food  and  shelter  in  the  snow:  Name  four 
of  the  animals  that  so  find  their  food  and  shelter.  Are  there  any 
others  ?  Look  them  up. 

PAGE  70 

there  will  be  suffering  and  death :  In  your  tramps  afield  this  winter 
look  out  for  signs  of  suffering.  There  are  many  little  things  that 
you  can  do  to  lessen  it  —  a  little  seed  scattered,  a  piece  of  suet 
nailed  up  on  a  tree,  a  place  cleared  in  the  snow  where  gravel 
stones  can  be  picked  up. 

or  even  three  hundred  pounds  of  honey  :  By  not  allowing  the  bees  to 
swarm,  and  thus  divide  their  strength,  bee-keepers  often  get  more 
than  three  hundred  pounds  of  comb-honey  (in  the  little  pound  boxes 
or  sections)  from  a  single  hive.  The  bees  themselves  require  only 
about  twenty  to  twenty-five  pounds  to  carry  them  through  the 
winter. 

PAGE  71 

the  witch-hazels :  The  witch-hazels  do  not  yield  honey  so  far  as  the 
author  has  observed.  Suppose  you  watch  this  autumn  to  see  if 
the  honey-bees  (do  you  know  a  honey-bee  when  you  see  her  ?) 
visit  it.  Whence  comes  this  quotation?  From  which  poeui  of 
Bryant's :  — 

"  when  come  the  calm,  mild  days." 

put  on  their  storm-doors :  In  modern  bee-hives  there  is  a  movable 
board  in  front  upon  which  the  bees  alight  when  entering  the 
hive  ;  this  can  be  so  turned  as  to  make  a  large  doorway  for  the 
summer,  and  a  small  entrance  for  the  cold  winter. 
whole  drove  of  forty-six  woodchucks :  The  author  at  one  time  had 
forty-six  inhabited  woodchuck  holes  on  his  farm. 


120  THE  FALL  OF  THE  YEAR 

PAGE  72 

as  Bobolink  among  the  reeds  of  the  distant  Orinoco :   The  bobolink 
winters  even  farther  south  —  beyond  the  banks  of  the  Amazon. 
to  sleep  until  dawn  of  spring :  What  is  the  name  for  this  strange 
sleeping  ?  What  other  American  animals  do  it  ?  Name  three. 

PAGE  73 

frogs  frozen  into  the  middle  of  solid  lumps  of  ice :  Of  course,  this 
was  never  done  intentionally  :  each  time  the  frogs  were  forgotten 
and  left  in  the  laboratory,  where  they  froze. 

PAGE  74 

they  seem  to  have  given  up  the  struggle  at  once  .  .  .  :  This  may  not 
be  the  explanation.  One  of  the  author's  friends  suggests  that  it 
may  have  been  caused  by  exposure,  due  to  their  having  been 
frightened  in  the  night  from  their  usual  bed  and  thus  forced  to 
roost  where  they  could  until  morning. 

PAGE  75 

timothy :  "  Herd's-grass  "  or  "  English  hay  " —  as  it  is  sometimes 
called  in  New  England. 

plenty  for  the  birds :  What  are  the  "  weeds  "  made  for  ?  You 
growl  when  you  are  set  to  pulling  them  in  the  garden.  What  are 
they  made  for  ?  Can  you  answer  ? 


CHAPTER  X 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Perhaps  you  are  in  a  crowded  school-room  in  the  heart  of  a  great 
city.  What  can  you  do  for  your  pupils  there  ?  But  what  can't  you  do  ? 
You  have  a  bit  of  sky,  a  window  surely,  an  old  tin  can  for  earth, 
a  sprig  of  something  to  plant — and  surely  you  have  English  spar- 
rows behind  the  rain  pipe  or  shutter !  You  may  have  the  harbor  too, 
and  water-front  with  its  gulls  and  fish,  and  the  fish  stores  with  their 
windows  full  of  the  sea.  You  have  the  gardens  and  parks,  burial- 
grounds  and  housetops,  bird  stores,  museums  —  why,  bless  you,  you 
have  the  hand-organ  man  and  his  monkey  ;  you  have  —  but  I  have 
mentioned  enough.  It  is  a  hungry  little  flock  that  you  have  to  feed, 
too,  and  no  teacher  can  ask  more. 


NOTES  AND   SUGGESTIONS  121 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 
PAGE  76 

An  English  sparrow:  Make  a  long  and  careful  study  of  the 
sparrows  that  nest  about  you.  If  you  live  in  the  country  try  to 
drive  them  away  from  the  bluebird  house  and  the  martin-boxes. 
The  author  does  not  advise  boys  and  girls  to  do  any  killing,  but 
carefully  pulling  dqwn  a  sparrow's  nest  with  eggs  in  it  — if  you 
are  sure  it  is  a  sparrow's  nest  —  is  kindness,  he  believes,  to  the 
other,  more  useful  birds.  Yet  only  yesterday,  August  17th,  he 
saw  a  male  sparrow  bring  moth  after  moth  to  its  young  in  a 
hole  in  one  of  the  timbers  of  a  bridge  from  which  the  author 
was  fishing.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  just  what  our  duty  is  in  this 
matter. 

PAGE  77 

clack  of  a  guinea  going  to  roost :  The  guinea-fowl  as  it  goes  to 

roost  frequently  sets  up  a  clacking  that  can  be  heard  half  a  mile 

away. 

an  ancient  cemetery  in  the  very  heart  of  Boston :  The  cemetery  was 

the  historic  King's  Chapel  on  Tremont  Street,  Boston.    Some  of 

the  elm  trees  have  since  been  cut  down. 

PAGE  78 

Cubby  Hollow:  a  small  pond  near  the  author's  boyhood  home, 

running,  after  a  half-mile  course  through  the  woods,  into  Lupton's 

Pond,  which  falls  over  a  dam  into  the  meadows  of  Cohansey 

Creek. 

on  the  water :  What  water  is  it  that  surrounds  so  large  a  part  of 

the  City  of  Boston  ? 

PAGE  79 

the  shuttered  buildings :  Along  some  of  the  streets,  especially  in 

the  wholesale  district,  the  heavy  iron  shutters,  closed  against  the 

high  walls  of  the  buildings,  give  the  deserted  streets  a  solemn, 

almost  a  forbidding  aspect. 

facing  the  wind  :  like  an  anchored  boat,  offering  the  least  possible 

resistance  to  the  storm. 

out  of  doors  lies  very  close  about  you,  as  you  hurry  down  a  crowded 

city  street :  Opportunities  for  watching  the  wild  things,  for  seeing 

and  hearing  the  things  of  nature,  cannot  be  denied  you  even  in 

the  heart  of  the  city,  if  you  have  an  eye  for  such  things.  Read 

Bradford  Torrey's  "  Birds  on  Boston  Common,"  or  the  author's 


122  THE   FALL  OF  THE   YEAR 

"Birds  from  a  City  Roof"  in  the  volume  called  "Roof  and 
Meadow." 

CHAPTER  XI 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

This  is  a  chapter  00  the  large  wholesomeness  of  contact  with  nature  ; 
that  even  the  simple,  humble  tasks  out  of  doors  are  attended  with  a 
freedom  and  a  naturalness  that  restore  one  to  his  real  self  by  putting 
him  into  his  original  primitive  environment  and  by  giving  him  an 
original  primitive  task  to  do. 

Then,  too,  how  good  a  thing  it  is  to  have  something  alive  and  re- 
sponsive to  work  for  —  if  only  a  goat  or  a  pig  !  Take  occasion  to 
read  to  the  class  Lamb's  essay  on  Roast  Pig  —  even  fifth  grade  pupils 
will  get  a  lasting  picture  from  it. 

Again  —  and  this  is  the  apparent  purpose  of  the  chapter  —  how 
impossible  it  is  to  go  into  the  woods  with  anything  —  a  hay-rake  — 
and  not  find  the  woods  interesting  ! 

FOR  THE   PUPIL 

PAGE  80 

the  unabridged  dictionary  :  What  does  "  unabridged  "  mean  ? 
hay-rig:  a  simple  farm  wagon  with  a  "  rigging"  put  on  for  cart- 
ing hay. 

PAGE  81 

cord  wood :  wood  cut  into  four-foot  lengths  to  be  cut  up  smaller 
for  burning  in  the  stove.  What  are  the  dimensions  of  a  cord  of 
wood? 

PAGE  82 

through  the  cold  gray  of  the  maple  swamp  below  you,  peers  the  face  of 

Winter :  What  does  one  see  in  a  maple  swamp  at  this  time  of 

year  that  looks  like  the  "  face  of  winter."  Think. 

he  that  gathers  leaves  for  his  pig  spreads  a  blanket  of  down  over  his 

own  winter  bed:  How  is  this  meant  to  be  taken  ? 

round  at  the  barn  :  It  is  a  common  custom  with  farmers  to  make 

this  nightly  round  in  order  to  see  that  the  stock  is  safe  for  the 

night.  Were  you  ever  in  a  barn  at  night  where  the  horses  were 

still  munching  hay,  and  the  cattle  rattling  their  stanchions  and 

horns  ?   Recall  the  picture  in  Whittier's  "  Snow-Bound." 


NOTES  AND  SUGGESTIONS  123 

PAGE  83 

diameters :  the  unit  of  measure  in  the  "  field "  or  the  lens  of  the 
microscope,  equivalent  to  "  times." 

white-footed  wood  mouse:  Text  should  read  or  wood  mouse.  There 
are  other  wood  mice,  but  Whitefoot  is  known  as  the  wood  mouse. 
gives  at  the  touch :  an  idiom,  meaning  moves  back,  gives  way. 
red-backed  salamander :  very  common  under  stones  ;  his  scientific 
name  is  Plethodon  erythronotus. 

His  "red"  salamander:  Read  chapter  v  in  "Pepacton,"  by  Bur- 
roughs. His  salamander  is  the  red  triton,  Spelerpes  ruber. 

PAGE  84 

dull  ears :  Our  ears  are  dulled  by  the  loud  and  ceaseless  noises  of 

our  city  life,  so  that  we  cannot  hear  the  small  voices  of  nature 

that  doubtless  many  of  the  wild  creatures  are  capable  of  hearing. 

tiny  tree-frog,  Pickering's  hyla :  the  one  who  peeps  so  shrill  from 

the  meadows  in  spring. 

"skirl":  a  Scotch  term;  see  "Tarn O'Shanter," by  Burns  :  "He 

screwed  the  pipes  and  gart  them  skirl." 

bunches  of  Christmas  fern :  Gathered  all  through  the  winter  here 

in  the  ledges  about  Mullein  Hill  by  the  florists  for  floral  pieces. 

PAGE  85 

yelloiv-jacketjs  nest :  one  of  the  Vespa  Wasps,  Vespa  Germanica. 
Read  the  first  chapter  of  "  Wasps  Social  and  Solitary,"  by  G.  W. 
and  E.  G.  Peckham. 

PAGE  86 

long-tusked  boar  of  the  forest :  The  wild  boar,  the  ancestor  of  our 
domestic  pigs  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  great  game  preserves  in 
European  forests  ;  in  this  country  only  in  zoological  gardens. 
live  in  a  pen  :  How  might  one,  though  living  in  a  big  modern 
house,  well  furnished  and  ordered,  still  make  a  "  pen  "  of  it  only. 

CHAPTER  XII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Notice  again  that  in  the  three  chapters  on  things  to  see  and  do 
and  hear  a  few  of  the  characteristic  sights  and  sounds  and  doings  have 
been  mentioned.  Let  the  whole  teaching  of  these  three  chapters  be 
to  quicken  the  pupil  to  look  for  and  listen  for  the  dominant,  charac- 


124  THE   FALL   OF  THE   YEAR 

teristic  sights  and  sounds  of  the  season,  as  he  must  be  trained  to  look 
for  and  listen  for  the  characteristic  notes  and  actions  of  individual 
things — birds,  animals,  flowers.  If,  for  instance,  his  eye  catches  the 
galloping,  waving  motion  of  the  woodpecker's  flight,  if  his  ear  is 
trained  to  distinguish  the  rappings  of  the  same  bird  on  a  hollow  limb 
or  resonant  rail,  then  the  pupil  knows  that  bird  and  has  clues  to  what 
is  strange  in  his  plumage,  his  anatomy,  his  habits,  his  family  traits. 

The  world  outdoors  is  all  a  confusion  until  we  know  how  to  separate 
and  distinguish  things  ;  and  there  is  no  better  training  for  this  than 
to  get  in  the  way  of  looking  and  listening  for  what  is  characteristic. 

Karh  locality  differs,  however,  to  some  extent  in  its  wild  life  ;  so 
that  some  of  the  sounds  in  this  chapter  may  need  to  have  others  sub- 
stituted to  meet  those  differences.  Remember  that  you  are  the 
teacher,  not  the  book.  The  book  is  but  a  suggestion.  You  begin 
where  it  leaves  off  ;  you  fill  out  where  it  is  lacking.  A  good  book  is 
a  very  good  thing  ;  but  a  good  teacher  is  a  very  much  better  thing. 

FOR   THE   PUPIL 

Now  do  not  stuff  cotton  in  your  ears  as  soon  as  you  have  heard 
these  ten  sounds  ;  or,  what  amounts  to  the  same  thing,  do  not  stop 
listening.  If  you  do  only  what  the  book  says  and  nothing  else,  learn 
just  the  day's  lesson  and  nothing  more,  your  teacher  may  think  you 
a  very  "good  scholar,"  but  I  will  tell  you  that  you  are  a  poor 
student  of  nature.  The  woods  are  full  of  sounds  —  voices,  songs, 
whisperings  —  that  are  to  be  heard  when  none  of  these  ten  are 
speaking. 
PAGES  88  AND  90 

hear  their  piercing  whistle:  the  husky  yap,  yap,  yap  of  the  fox:  It 
is  usually  the  young  hawks  in  the  fall  that  whistle,  as  it  is  usually 
the  young  foxes  in  the  summer  and  fall  t  hat  bark. 
PAGE  91 

"  Heaped  in  the  hollows  of  the  prove,  the  autumn  leaves  lie  dead  ; 
They  rustle  to  the  eddying  gust,  and  to  the  rabbit's  tread." 

"  The  robin  and  the  wren  are  flown,  but  from  the  shrub  the  jay, 
And  from  the  wood-top  calls  the  crow  through  all  the  gloomy  day." 

Study  this  whole  poem  ("The  Death  of  the  Flowers,"  by  Bryant) 
for  its  excellent  natural  history.  Could  the  poet  have  written  it 
had  he  been  ignorant  of  nature  ?  Can  you  appreciate  it  all  unless 


NOTES   AND   SUGGESTIONS  125 

you,  too,  have  heard  these  sounds,  so  that  the  poem  can  sound 
them  again  to  you  as  you  read  ?  Nature  is  not  only  interesting 
for  herself  ;  but  also  absolutely  necessary  for  you  to  know  if  you 
would  know  and  love  poetry. 

the  one  with  a  kind  of  warning  in  its  shrill,  half-plaintive  cry ;  the 
other  with  a  message  slow  and  solemn :  What  is  the  warning,  would 
you  say,  in  the  scream  of  the  jay  ?  the  solemn  message  in  the 
caw  of  the  crow  ? 

PAGE  94 

cave  days :  Cave  days  mean  those  prehistoric  times  in  the  history 
of  man,  when  he  lived  in  caves  and  subsisted  almost  wholly  upon 
the  flesh  of  wild  animals  killed  with  his  rude  stone  weapons. 

PAGE  95 

to  the  deep  tangled  jungles  of  the  Amazon:  Some  of  the  birds  go 
even  farther  south  —  away  into  Patagonia  at  the  end  of  the  south- 
ern hemisphere.  There  is  no  more  interesting  problem,  no  more 
thrilling  sight  in  all  nature,  than  this  of  the  migrating  birds  — 
the  little  warblers  flying  from  Brazil  to  Labrador  for  the  few 
weeks  of  summer,  there  to  rear  their  young  and  start  back  again 
on  the  long,  perilous  journey  ! 


CHAPTER  XIII 

TO   THE   TEACHER 

Let  the  chapter  be  read  aloud  by  one  pupil,  with  as  much  feeling 
as  possible  to  the  paragraph  beginning,  "  I  love  the  sound  of  the 
surf,"  etc.;  for  this  part  is  story,  action,  movement.  Do  not  try  to 
teach  anything  in  this  half.  Let  some  other  thoughtful  pupil  read  the 
next  section  as  far  as,  ".  Honk,  honk,  honk,"  beginning  the  third  para- 
graph from  the  end.  This  contains  the  lesson,  the  moral,  and  if  you 
stop  anywhere  to  talk  about  bird-protection,  do  it  here.  Let  a  third 
pupil  read  the  rest  of  the  chapter.  Better  than  a  moral  lesson  di- 
rectly taught  (and  such  lessons  are  much  like  doses  of  castor  oil)  will 
be  the  touching  of  the  child's  imagination  by  the  picture  of  the  long 
night-flight  high  up  in  the  clouds.  Read  them  "  To  a  Water  Fowl," 
by  Bryant;  and  also  some  good  account  of  migration  like  that  by 
D.  Lange  ("  The  Great  Tidal  Waves  of  Bird-Life  ")  in  the  Atlantic 


126  THE   FALL   OF  THE   YEAR 

Monthly  for  August,  1909.    Read  to  them  Audubon's  account  of  the 
wild  goose,  in  his  "  Birds." 

FOR  THE  PUPIL 

PAGE  97 

followed  through  our  open  windows:  "followed"  how?  Must  one 
have  wings  or  a  flying-machine  in  order  to  "  follow  "  the  wild 
geese  ? 

Round  and  dim  swung  the  earth  below  us.  .  .  .  :  What  is  the  pic- 
ture ?  It  is  seen  from  what  point  of  view  ? 

the  call  to  fly,  fly,  fly  :  Did  you  ever  feel  the  call  to  fly  ?  Ever 
wish  you  had  wings  ?  Ever  start  and  run  as  Mowgli  did,  or  long 
to  get  up  and  go  somewhere  as  the  pilgrims  did  in  the  Canter- 
bury Tales  ? 

PAGE  99 

in  our  hands  to  preserve  :  Do  you  belong  to  the  Audubon  Society, 
to  the  "  Grange,"  or  to  any  of  the  organizations  that  are  trying 
to  protect  and  preserve  the  birds  ?  And  are  you  doing  all  you  can 
in  your  neighborhood  to  protect  them  ? 

PAGE  100 

not  in  a  heap  of  carcasses,  the  dead  and  bloody  weight  of  mere  meat  : 
We  may  be  hunters  by  instinct;  we  may  love  the  chase,  and  we 
may  like  to  kill  things.  But  do  you  think  that  means  we  ought  to, 
or  that  we  any  longer  may,  kill  things  ?  No  ;  bird  life  has  become 
so  scarce  that  even  if  we  do  want  to,  it  is  now  our  duty  to  give 
over  such  sport  in  the  larger  interests  of  the  whole  country,  and 
try  to  find  a  higher,  finer  'kind  of  pleasure,  —  as  we  can  in  trying 
to  photograph,  or  "  shoot  "  with  the  camera,  a  bird,  getting  an 
interesting  picture  in  place  of  a  dead  body. 

PAGE  101 

the  mated  pairs  of  the  birds  have  flocked  together :  In  domestic 
geese  the  mated  pairs  often  live  together  for  life;  and  among  the 
wild  geese  this,  doubtless,  is  often  true. 

PAGE  102 

may  1  be  awake  to  hear  you :  In  what  sense  "  awake  "  ? 

The  wild  geese  are  passing  —  southward :   the  end  of  the  autumn, 

the  sign  that  winter  is  here. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


